This system wasn’t my personal favorite (I tried it for a few months, but struggled having so much cash on hand). A lot of people find it’s harder to spend physical cash, which is one of the things that makes this budgeting system so successful! Then you distribute cash among each of your category envelopes and take your envelopes to the store when you need to buy something. With the cash envelope system (made popular by Dave Ramsey), you decide how much you need to take out each week, in cash, for each of your budget categories.
This post is chock full of options so you can find the one that fits the way you think. Or maybe you’re spring cleaning your finances. You don’t have to rewire your brain to align with the “right” method-because there are no right or wrong ways to budget. So don’t let budgeting systems be the one thing that keeps you from budgeting on a consistent basis. You don’t know …īut if you’ve mastered your money with a budget, the opportunities you create can be summed up in one word- freedom. Why? Because without a budgeting system, you are not in control of your money. ANY budgeting method is better than nothing. We eventually concluded that the way we budget doesn’t really matter. Both of us desperately tried to understand the other’s line of thinking-we moved our discussions online and even screencast videos to help each other see the other’s budget! I adore the spreadsheet method my mom taught me. Our conversation bounced back and forth among multiple topics, but the discussion that incited the strongest opinions wasn’t about religion or politics…it was about budgeting systems! While visiting South Carolina, Joseph and I had an opportunity to go out to dinner at a local restaurant with my friend, Rachelle, and her husband, Devin.