As a kid growing up most of us dream of becoming an adult not having to answer to anyone and buying whatever we want. We don’t think about the payments and responsibilities just the fun stuff. Our parents would tell us yes we can go to the mall or no we cannot eat out tonight, but the answer was theirs to give. During my childhood I heard yes as a teenager way too much and never developed the mental muscle needed to tell myself no. So obviously when I became an adult it would be my choice to say yes or no to what I wanted, and I preferred “yes”. This spoiled inner child that was created is the part of me that told me that we do not like budgets, because budgets tell us no.
In Dave Ramsey’s book before he talks about Baby Step 1 he talks about how we need a written budget. I’ve been in accounting for many years so the process of creating a budget has never been a problem for me, it was sticking to that budget. Throughout the years we have created budgets and they look good on paper but as soon as we went to the store and swiped our card or an unexpected bill came up we just made it work some how and finished the month with excuses why we got off track. This time things are going to be different. We’ve never been a big fan of using cash, because cards are just so much easier. They are also easier to get into debt and our way has never worked before so we are mixing it up this time.
We are going to use a separate bank account for gas and dining out. Gas just makes sense to use a card because you can pay at the pump and there isn’t a risk of overspending. If the price of fuel goes up we will just allocate more money to this fund to make sure it is covered. Dining out we won’t have much of for a while, but when we do grab something, I like to use mobile apps to use coupons and specials so having a card to pay for items in the app will be nice. Also, it is a separate account with a fixed budget so there isn’t the concern of overspending like a credit card.
Cash is a huge change in our budget. I’ve already started using it for groceries and find that I spend much less. I’m using cash envelope binders to keep the money split out for each category. Categories include annual car insurance, car repairs, house repairs, groceries, annual dues, cosmetics, gifts, and miscellaneous spending. I attempted to add more categories, but it just got to be too much.
It’s been almost 3 months since my last blog post. I started writing this post back in June, so I decided to keep most of it unchanged. This summer has had its ups and downs and staying on track with the budgeting has been difficult. Between medical issues and work-related travel budgeting was on our mind but it is easy to fall back into old habits. It’s crazy how fast time passes, summer is already over!
We did save and keep our $1000 baby emergency fund. Adding cash to envelopes every month was difficult, especially for annual dues and insurance. Knowing that you have several hundred dollars that could be applied to debt instead of sitting in cash somewhere is not a fun concept. We did open another bank account and now have $600 a month coming straight out of our paycheck going in there for groceries and dining out. We have cut way back on eating out but on occasion it happens. Having this dedicated account for groceries has been great. We get a similar experience to having cash since there is only so much in that account and it has to last us until next paycheck. I’m planning on opening another bank account that is strictly for annual dues, car insurance, car repairs, house repairs, and any other long-term items. I’m hoping that will help keep us on track a little better.