Cash System Update

A few weeks ago I posted about a new system that Adam and I were going to try out. It is the cash envelope system and you can read THIS post to catch up if you are lost. Anyways, I just wanted to give a public announcement to the world (or the 7 people who might read this) that WE LOVE IT!

Reasons?! Well, lets just say life is expensive. So when our dry cleaning is $40 and Tyson needs new food (which is about $60) and typically that just feels like a lot of money to spend.... oh wait! We already have that budgeted. In fact, The amount I need is in a cash envelope labeled "Tyson" or "Dry Cleaning". So I just go grab the amount of cash I need from the envelope- go run my errands and am back. It feels so much better knowing that we aren't overspending, we have all the stuff we need budgeted in.... and since it is cash, your bank account has the exact same amount in it. Simple but so genius.

We are really excited to get back on track today (payday) because we couldn't really do this system correctly when we were in Napa or on Thanksgiving break. If anyone else is thinking about doing this- I have 2 suggestions. 1) have an "Other" envelope for the stuff that is unexpected or if you overspent in another category. That way, this stuff is already budgeted too and you don't have to take it out of your bank account. 2) Always have some of the cash in your wallet and just keep tabs in your head of what category you are spending out of. Several times, we forgot to grab the cash before we left the house so we ended up paying with a card then going to the bank the next day to deposit that amount back in.... which is kind of a pain.

I highly recommend this to anyone. Hopefully one day we will be so rich that we won't have to worry about it (ha!) but for now, this is actually kind of fun for us (I know- SAD).

On a different note, is anyone having problems reading blogs? Like they won't load correctly? My computer went through updates and I couldn't even see my own blog- which is why my blog is plain jane right now. Vanessa- I can't see yours unless I am on my other computer either! So weird!