I have a long list of travels we're taking this year. I'm excited about all of them, but my usual annual travel is 1 week of family vacation and two long weekends. Usually all of these vacations are covered by MacTroll's mileage and hotel points, so we only have to pay for food. This year -- we're stretching points as far as they can go, but we have lots of places we want to go and to get there, we're having to cut back on many other things.
Today, I started living with my new budget that I made two weeks ago. It involves us using more cash rather than credit cards. We pay our visa bills in full every month. But I think my boys have this whole... "It's broke, we'll buy a new one" or "But I want this..." mentality. We have enough stuff. And really, I'd like my family not to be so wasteful.
Every week, I pull a particular amount of money out for groceries and spending cash. I separate it into envelopes. And when the cash is gone, we're done for the week. Any extra spending money goes into another envelope for items I'd like (like my the fact that I'll need a spring/summer wardrobe after losing the weight).
4 comments:
I love the cash idea...I do that for Doug every month. There is a cash amount for lunches out at work, drinks and snacks during the day. It is saving us a ton of money...he said when its debit debit debit it's so easy to lose track!
We do cash only for groceries too (I've learned my stuff from Dave Ramsey- my latest obsession!). I just do a certain amount per month, but we tend to not really shop every week so it usually works. I would love to do cash for gas (our biggest expense!) but really can't bring myself to get 2 kids out of the car to pay for it...We also get a certain amount of cash to eat out for the month too. Do you use any budgeting software or just do stuff yourself?
Oh yeah- wanted to add that my Dave Ramsey obsession does not extend to any of the others on the same channel....for example, I turn the radio off as soon as Rush Limbaugh's music starts.....just wanted to make that clear ;)
I tried Quicken awhile back. But really it was good for tracking things... but I didn't really use it in terms of making better purchasing decisions. Instead, I just took what we made per month, deleted all of the things we have to pay for and then came up with solid numbers for groceries, gas, etc. We know we spend too much. Might as well keep that excess at bay and keep it for much more fun things -- like family interaction.
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