RSS Feed

Cash Out The Joy Money

September 17, 2012 by admin

Part of our continuing series on worry-free cash management.

We live by a budget.  We would spin into financial chaos without meticulous planning.  We know- we’ve been there.  Keeping to a budget is the ONLY way we can afford to live on essentially one income.  We build our budget carefully and factor everything into our calculations:  groceries, gas, rent, utilities, swim lessons, recreation, etc.  As a result, we rarely use credit cards for anything beyond true emergencies.

Even with this insanely tight planning, we found our weekend expenses hard to track.  In these days of electronic banking, it can be easy to think you have more money that you actually hold.  We’d find ourselves in a tight spot on a non payday week having overspent the previous weekend.  And we’d argue over how it happened.  We just couldn’t accurately account for our debit card purchases.

The solution was simple, though hard to circle around to since we’d become so dependent on our debit cards:  CASH.  It seems old school in this day and age to use cash for purchases.  But it is the only thing that works for us.

We budget for $50 of free spending on the weekends.  This means that anything beyond gas that is purchased on the weekend must come from the $50.  If you want an ice cream cone or a pair of socks, it is out of the $50.  When that money is gone, the free for all is over for the weekend.  Anything that isn’t spent just carries over into the following weekend.  Or it can be used for emergency fun during the week.

Our family of 4 does just fine on our allotted $50.  In fact, most weekends we have about $10 left over.  And we aren’t sitting at home.  We’re eating ice cream, travelling to our favorite places (like the Milwaukee Public Museum), and shopping.  Most importantly, we’re now functioning within our budget and not fighting over where the money went come Monday.

It works great for kids too- nothing can better teach them the value of their money.

If you’ve struggled to keep your recreational spending in check, we suggest you go a cash route.  Or if you’ve developed a different method to keep your budget in order, we’d love to hear what it is.


1 Comment

  1. […] have that…”  And we wanted her to develop the necessary skills involved when handling money:  budgeting, accounting, responsibility, safe keeping, […]

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.