Personal Finance Victory

[Joel W.]

Just wanted to share something that turned out to be very effective. Last month we moved to an all cash system for all household expenses. Although, we have saved a lot of money by being frugal and loosely budgeting our family finances I have grown sick of going over budget in certain areas. I simplified by breaking our family budget into 6 areas, and placed cash in a small accordion folder only what was budgeted for each area. Once we ran out of cash for something we stopped spending. It is amazing how aware my wife and I became about our spending.  After several months of going $50-$150 over our grocery budget every month for our family of 6 we finally met our budget goal. All in all it was fun, challenging, has built in discipline and accountability and we were able to meet our saving goal of 30% of our monthly W-2 pay.