The Thrifty (Music) Therapist - An Envelope Update

A couple of months ago, I decided that I needed to be more money conscious about my extraneous spending, so I started an envelope system. I started with five envelopes - fast food, books, crafts, home, and miscellaneous. In the past four months, I have used this system to help me make decisions about spending in these categories. Let's do a little bit of an update on how this is working for me.

Overall, I think it is going pretty well. I have spent my fast food envelope more than the other four, with the books envelope coming in second. I have spent a bit from the other three envelopes but have not come to end of the cash there. I have done less spontaneous shopping, and that is making a difference in my budget.

Today is payday which means I am currently flush with money. That will only be sustained for a couple of days as bills will be paid, but I have enough money to get my envelope allowance to replenish my envelopes. Since I spent some of my account money on books and food this month, I transferred those cash amounts from my envelopes to my holding place. I will take out my allowance amount minus those cash amounts. This will mean that I am not double-dipping into my primary account - you know, taking money to buy books and food from my account but not from my entertainment envelopes. 

It all makes sense in my head.

So, in the next couple of days, I will get myself to the ATM, take out money, and then sit down with my receipts and my leftover cash. I will spend time distributing my cash between my envelopes and then head into this month with my limits firmly established.

I am going to spend some time reviewing my budget again. It is always a good time to do this at the start of the quarter, so that will come this weekend. I have to make a grocery order (that is not part of my envelope system) for things that I need to supplement what I already have available - things like enchilada sauce and parmesan cheese for my other recipes. I need some frozen spinach and some ricotta so I can make lasagna. Plans are afoot, but first, budget review.

It is always interesting to see how much money I spend over the quarter on things outside of my necessities list. So, I will continue to do this system until it no longer works for me. There you go.

See you soon.

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