We mainly use cash and the envelope system to budget. We do occasionally use credit cards for certain expenses, but we primarily use cash. Starting with our last month’s money, we started taking all our one-dollar bills to use as a small emergency fund. Since February 1, we have put $125 into our newest envelope.
We put each of our dollar bills in the envelope and then once it reaches $100, we trade it out for a one-hundred-dollar bill and start over. It’s not much, but it will provide another small cushion for when an emergency arises. On the front of the envelope, we have a square post-it note and each time we add any dollar bills to the envelope, we update the post-it note, that way we have a running tally of how much is in there.
I’m hoping to have close to $1000 by the end of the year. Regardless of how much money is in there, it will function as another small safety net, at least until we get out of credit card debt.
It’s been fun to watch the numbers grow. Our debt is going down VERY SLOWLY, and it has been hard to keep our motivation up to pay off debt, but this has been something that has made me a little excited about our finances again. It’s a small thing, that is giving us a surprisingly big morale boost.
March 19th, 2023 at 11:38 pm 1679269116