Organizing My Life-Cash Envelope System (before and after)

One of the things I love is taking out cash each paycheck. It keeps me on budget...or should I say closer to my budget. There are some areas (like groceries), I cannot seem to stick to some weeks. I'm trying! I have used cash off and on for years, and just find that I do better when I have cash in hand-it hurts more to give it away, I know how much I have-so I make better choices, and I can say no easier.

A year or so ago, my sister gave me her Financial Peace envelopes/holder. I was excited, as I had always used various white regular envelopes filled with money, stashed in my wallet. This was a nice way to keep them all organized and held together. But, as you can see from my pictures, they wore out on me!

So, I found This Tutorial and made some new ones-during the football game the other day I "watched" with Shane (some guy named Tim Tebow was playing??) :) , and I LOVE them! They are fun and bright and might make saving money seem a little more exciting?? I don't know-maybe that's a stretch. :)


But, they are so sturdy-made out of cardstock, and I made several more "categories" to help me keep even better track of things.

My new categories are: Fun (entertainment-which usually consists of eating out once every two weeks-:) ), Haircuts (includes Beauty/Cosmetics), Date Night (currently has $1 in it!), Grocery-Bulk Foods, Grocery-milk/eggs/dairy, Grocery-bulk meat, Grocery-produce, Grocery-Misc., Grocery-Meat, Household Misc., School, Clothing, and Gifts. Now, these are just my "cash" categories, we budget the rest on paper. The lady who designed these, also sells them on Etsy pre-made here, and they are laminated! I'm sure they'd hold up for awhile! I'll let you know how long these last.