Envelopes

So - many people know that I love mail and how I think envelopes hold little nuggets of joy.  And in an effort to trim the budget, I am turning to the genius of envelopes.  It's a simple method (and I guess it came from Dave Ramsey, but I have no idea about his financial advice...) and really helps keep a lid on things.

In a nutshell, the envelope system is simply putting aside cash (in an envelope) for budgeted expenditures.  My grocery money??  It has it's own envelope and whatever is in the envelope has to stretch for the month.  Clothing money?? Same thing... it arrives on the first of the month in an envelope and that's all I get.  When it's gone- it's gone.

It's amazing to see how much you can save by forcing yourself to stick to a budget like this.  We made an excel sheet and seeing the numbers made it all the more motivating.  The systems starts in October- wish me luck!