Frugal Missus Forgets Her Cash

We've started using the Envelope System to keep our spending in check. It's working for us, so far, I think! I have done all my grocery spending for the first 2 weeks and still have $19 left over! Yay me! My gas money was gone much faster than either Frugal Mister or myself had anticipated so we'll be doing some tweeking on that since Frugal Mister has almost half of his money left!

I've also found those small little envelopes I had been using were difficult to manage and left me feeling very scatter-brained, especially when I was trying to keep track of how much I was spending and what coupons I was trying to use. I stopped by My Happy Place and picked up a 13 pocket check-filing plastic envelope thing at the Dollar Spot. I have my sections labeled as I would my different envelopes, a small notebook in the front to keep track of what/when I spend, and extra pockets for receipts that need to be entered into my pricebook or coupons that need to be filed.

One benefit (among many) of using the envelope system is that if you forget your envelope, you can't spend. Period. I went out for a walk with a friend of mine today and headed home around lunch time. I knew I had leftovers in the fridge but a quickie burger sounded soooo good! (Hey, cut a Frugal Gal some slack! I'm almost 39 weeks pregnant!) However, having only anticipated a walk, I left my envelopes back at home. Sure, it's only a couple of dollars, but I didn't spend it. Now I have a couple dollars to spend elsewhere, save, or put towards the debt snowball at the end of the month.

For those of you wondering, Frugal Mister and I will sit down at the end of the month with the "extra" money in our envelopes and the money we've gotten from selling stuff on Craigslist and our garage sale we had a couple weeks ago, and shoot that off to our debt snowball. Just because we HAVE the money in the envelopes doesn't mean we have to spend it!