Living off Envelopes

The Turner Home is a huge fan of Dave Ramsey. His common sense approach to money really speaks to us and we have been loyal followers for years.

Now, Dave's whole premise is living debt free, which means always paying cash. He has some really great reasons why in his course, Financial Peace University, and his book, The Total Money Makeover. The way he keeps track of his money is 'the envelope system.' We have been using this system for almost 2 years and we LOVE it! It is so simple! Dave uses envelopes for EVERY category of spending, but this was a little too much for us. We just chose to pay cash for food, and it works really well because food is the easiest category for us to cut back on if we need to. Here's an example:

1. Decide how much you want to spend on food in a month
2. Get that amount of money out of the bank at the beginning of the month and keep it in an envelope
3. When you buy food, ONLY use the money in the envelope. No credit cards!

The beauty of this system is you can see how much money you have left/get to spend. If I check the envelope and we are running low, I know how to plan the meals for the upcoming week. Before, when we used credit, I had a lot of random/impulse buys. This was costing us a lot of extra money! Now, I am very conscious of what I buy. No impulse buys, and I look for sale items. We aren't starving for food, just living within our means.

Here's the fun part: at the end of the month if we have any excess, Wes and I get to split it! Fun money!!

Seriously love this system. If you want to reign in your spending, it's a great way to start.

Have a good one!

The Turners