For the month of November I am only going to use cash to buy things. I am going to say goodbye to my debit and credit cards and say hello to dollar bills and change. I started thinking about this idea when Bank of America announced all of their extra fees they are going to start charging people to use cards. That being said, I don’t use Bank of America so the extra fees don’t affect me. I have received mixed reviews from the people I spoke with about this idea. There responses were: “How are you going to do that?”, “How much are you going to have to take out?”, “Why?” etc. After hearing all of these reactions I knew I could call one person who would be able to support this effort. That person would be my dad; my guess is that he has probably used a credit card maybe 4 times this whole year. Since I was little he has always used cash to pay for everything; my mom on the other hand...that is a different story. :)- He told me that he knows I can do it, I just have to really budget how much I am going to spend.
This is where it becomes tough…a budget. I think half the reason I am doing this is to really start to think about what I am spending my money on. I do have a habit of not even looking at prices sometimes and I thought maybe if I start thinking more about it I could save some money. The second problem other than the budget is trying to figure out how much I should take out. I looked at my bank account and started to figure out how much I have spent for the past 3 months. It made me realize this is going to be tricky becuase I have spent different amounts of money each month…I also have to take into account that its a holiday month.
Here are my rules:
1. I can only take out money once
2. If something really bad happens (i.e. hospital visit) I can use my cards
3. I am paying for bills via direct deposit/cards i.e. Rent, Direct TV, Taekwondo ext.
So I will keep you updated on my ventures. I still don’t know how much I am going to take out. It should be an interesting month.
Oh this is easy. First up, you know how much your bills cost you. Subtract that from what you bring home in a month (if it fluctuates, figure on your lowest income). That right there? Is what you have for everything else (food, cleaning supplies/extras, fun money, etc). Of that remaining money, split it up depending on how you want to. Put 1/4 of it towards savings, then split the rest. So if that means you get $50 on food? Carry an envelope that says "food" on it, and every time you want to eat- it has to come out of that envelope. If you have left overs in any of your envelopes- put it in your savings. My hubs and I had to do this for an entire year after our bankruptcy. It was hard and horrible- but let me tell you what. If I can feed a family of 4 for a week on $75, you can too. ;)
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