Write It Down

Money blog post #2! I hope you're all having a great weekend so far!

This post I wanted to elaborate a little more on how I got started with using cash and money jars.

So last week I kind of gave a broad overview and I'm sure some who read that were like woah, that's way too much work. Believe me, the first time I read about this online and watched it on TV I felt the same way. I was thinking how could anyone keep all their receipts and write down every single cent they're spending and not go crazy. Here's the thing...I was already keeping all of my credit card receipts and comparing them to my statements at the end of the month so I figured cash couldn't be much different.

The first time I tried to do this, I never wrote anything down. I figured okay I'll take out $100 a week and have that for everything I need. I would never know what I was spending money on, but I knew that I wasn't using my credit card. Well when I ran out of money and my car ran out of gas, guess who resorted to her credit card again? Yep. Didn't work.

The second time I was a lot smarter. Like I had mentioned, I bought a budget binder, jars, and some paint and made sure that I was going to do it right this time.

I looked for inspiration from Til Debt Do Us Part. Two adults trying to get out of severe debt didn't have much to spend on their variable expenses. I didn't want to limit myself like they were, but I wanted to make sure I was trying to be reasonable on my budget.

Now that I'm one of the busiest human beings as people would say, having my 30-60 minutes on Sunday mornings scheduled to making my budget, planning it, and not worrying about it for the rest of the week makes my life SO much easier.

My Sunday Routine

9 am - wake up and smell the coffee (or go down the street and buy some if you're too lazy to make your own)

9:30 - head to the bank, take out the right amount of money

9:40 - home, distribute the money between my five money jars and write down in the budget binder which category has which balance

9:50 - enjoy the rest of my Sunday

Less than one hour for a whole week of financial ease. Here's my tips on how you can get started with each jar:

- take a look at your credit and debit statements. see what you're spending too much money on and if you're just spending money on wants or if they're actually needs
- make sure your need categories like food and transportation are not less than they should be. if you live on your own, this is especially important because you can't just head downstairs and raid your parents pantry if you get hungry
- take  your entertainment, clothing, and other jars and build them up slowly. so maybe only start off with $20 a week. these jars can build up over time so that you can buy bigger or more expensive things (for example, if you put $20  a week in your other jar and just keep letting it build until you feel like you need to use it, it'll have a very big balance when you do go to use it)

I'm about two months into this, and I've learned quickly what I NEED to spend money on, and things that I WANT to spend money on, but need to save up for over time. Honestly though, even if you can't get on the money jars right away, start by just writing down everything you spend. Get your receipts from EVERYWHERE (yes, even Tim's) and keep it in a bag or a jar for a month. At the end of that month, look at what you spent your money on and what was a need and what was a want. Did you overspend? Probably, I've been down that road many times. My savings account should probably be way bigger than it is. Regardless, the younger you can start these good habits, the better off you'll be later in life!

Stay tuned for next week's post, I will give you more tips on how you can ditch the plastic (trust me, this was my most difficult task) It is hard, but you CAN do it! I've had a lot of questions thrown at me, so I will try and address all of them as the weeks go on, but again if you have any questions feel free to contact me. I'm always willing to listen and lend my advice :)


*Disclaimer: I am not a financial expert, I am merely sharing my personal insights on how changing these bad habits made me more money conscious :)