Cash ONLY Approach To Budgeting!
As I said on my about me page, writing stuff down always makes me feel waaaaay more accountable. That said, I will be writing down one of our goals that will be put into action starting this Sunday, January 25th! There are lots of different money saving topics my hubby and I have been talking about doing and well, that’s all… just talking. Now its time to put all that talk into action and really start accomplishing one of these goals.
This may sound a little odd considering I have a blog about saving money… but we really don’t have a weekly budget set in stone. I know, I know…what?!? I agree completely! We talk about what we want to spend weekly but hardly ever stick with it. I’ve always never really liked putting a budget together, dealing with numbers, math and tediously keeping track of all our spending. In my opinion it always felt like so much time waisted, so whats the solution?!?
Well, I actually feel Ive found a perfect solution. We will be starting this Sunday, what I call the CASH ONLY approach. Basically we’ve been discussing over the past couple weeks what each of us NEEDS not want in terms of weekly spending money, not including gas or any bills we receive in the mail. Since my hubby’s in the military, though, he does need money for weekly haircuts (yes, I know I could cut his hair but lets just says hes a bit of a perfectionist) and also for those just in case lunches where hes forced to eat out instead of bringing a lunch from home. For myself, I need money for groceries, diapers and any personal care items.
After going over everything we decided that I would get $75 per week and my hubby will get $25, for a total of $400 per month. Now to some of you this may seem really high but for us at this point its just the right amount. Remember this $75 will cover ALL my weekly expenses, everything you can think of except bills and gas. The nice part is we can always stop, review our progress and change the amount to more or less if need be.
Alright, so now to put our Cash ONLY approach into action. Every Sunday when I go pick up the newspaper I will stop at the ATM and get $100 out ($25 for my hubby and $75 for me), that’s it! The $75 CASH will go in my Wallet and my debit card will be pulled out. Shopping with ONLY cash in my wallet will leave me with no options but one, to stick with my weekly budget. The best part is no calculator or budget spreadsheet needed… PLUS when I shop with cash I feel it more. I’m not sure if that makes much sense. When I slide a card, though, it doesn’t give me that same feeling, the feeling of realizing all the money that was just spent. On the other hand, when I pull three $20 bills out of my wallet I KNOW I’m about to spend $60 and it doesn’t always feel that great! Although, it does make me motivated to stretch my hard earned dollar and I’m hoping it will motivate me to stick with my cash only approach too.
Do you have a certain way you budget your money?
If so, I would love to hear about it.
Stay tuned for progress with our cash only approach…