The envelope way of saving/spending has been around for quite sometime.
Dave Ramsey was the one the who came up with this plan of attack for people to get out of debt and stay out of debt while saving for retirement and to be rich!
The first time I watched his series at my church I was probably 16 or 17. I was making money but wasn't sure what to do with it besides pay for my gas and car insurance. I hadn't thought about really saving, unless you count saving for the new pair of jeans I wanted!!
His teachings about saving was so easy and clear though I could understand perfectly.
So slowly I started trying to save more by putting a center amount of money (Like $20+) in center envelopes (Gas, Car, Clothes, Gifts, Phone... ) when I would get paid.
I did this for a couple months and then out of the blue when my car broke down for no reason, I panicked and for a split second I thought "How am I going to pay for this?!"
Then it hit me, "Oh YEAH my envelope!" from then on I always tried to keep the "envelope way" up. I haven't always been perfect about it, let's be honest... it's hard to not spend money on stupid things! But knowing that Cain and I would be on a budget when we got married it made it "easier" on me to keep it up, because I knew it would help us out in the end (And it has!)
Most of our bills are online so I don't find the need to do our bills in envelopes, also with our over all savings I do that online. So I use envelopes now for the things we want/need. And when we reach our goal of money for the thing we want, we start a new envelope for the new thing!
Tip: Don't have to many envelopes at once! You'll never reach your goal if you have to many things to save for.
When the new year came around I thought I would update my envelopes and make them a tad more cute thinking maybe that more money would make it's way there if the envelopes were cute, right?!
We will see about that ;)
This was so cheap too! Actually it was sort of free! I already had the envelopes, paper and glue! But if you didn't it still is super cheap!
I found this cute label template online at Sonya Deheart Designs but you could find different styles through Pinterest or make your own!
All I did was cut them out and glue them onto the envelopes!
Start start saving! It's fun to reward yourself with the things you want. Like Cain's new TV :)
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