I probably do things a bit harder then they have to be but it seems to work for me and my family. I created our budget in Excel so all the categories are tailed to us and where I want them.
It really isn’t hard to do basic formulas.
I also have a list on there of which bills come out of which pay check each month.
We do have a lot of envelopes for cash.
The best example is with food- we have a food envelope, a toiletry/household one, and a junk/drink envelope.
It sounds like over kill but I insisted on it because what would happen otherwise is sodas and junk food would be bought too much leaving me with pennies to actually supply the family with REAL food.
I hardly ever buy sodas and bottle water anymore because it feels like wasted money and they are over consumed in this house! So DH has to do it out of the junk food money and its a natural way to curb usage.
Same thing goes with house hold things.
Obviously we need soap and stuff like that.
But if we run out of paper towels and there is no money in the household envelope? Oh well.
You can use cloth towels! We have plenty of those.
I’m protective of that food envelope because shopping and meal planning is hard for me so being a thrifty meal planner is even harder! We also have a his and her gas envelope because my DH commutes 90 miles a day and I’m a stay-at-home mom.
I could easily accidently use too much gas money and Brian not have enough to go to work.
So far gas has been the hardest part of this budget for me.
I like to go places and hate that sometimes I don’t even have enough gas to go to the library! So I’m finding the various envelopes really keep us in check with our own personal weaknesses.
As for the actual cash- we keep our envelopes in a bankers envelope.
Brian just takes what he needs each day and keeps it in his wallet which is mainly his spending money and gas money.
I carry a plastic envelope w/Velcro in the diaper bag and when I’m heading out I put all the envelopes I’ll need in there.
So all the change and receipts go in the proper envelope right away and its all in one location.
It really is working well for me! -Dawn in Maryland