Our Cash Journey...

This month, my husband and I went on what my friend Anne calls "a cash journey... because that's exactly what it is, a journey". I blogged earlier about how we've set out to decrease our debt, increase our monthly cash flow, and tighten up our budget. Though we're big Dave fans and are following our Baby Steps, I'll admit I've never adhered to the part of Financial Peace University where you use cash for groceries, eating out, etc. Well, this month, we tried it.

In months past, my husband and I budgeted a certain amount for groceries and eating out, and "tracked" how much we spent with the debit card with each purchase. Trouble is, as the month went on, we slacked on the tracking and forgot small purchases such as a trip to the store for milk. In discussing our financial strategies with Anne, she mentioned her family's cash plan... using cash rather than debit. So this month, we figured out an amount for groceries and eating out/entertainment (our two "frequently used" categories) and took that dollar amount out of the bank. The only other budget category that is irregular for us is gasoline. But I didn't want to rely on us having cash when stopping for gas, so we left that as a "debit permitted" category.

I have to say, I am pretty proud of my husband this month. I really thought this was going to result in fights over used debit cards and overdrawn accounts. But here it is, the 25th of the month (4 days to payday), and we have $5 left in an envelope, and about $18 in the checking account with no bills left to come out (we're doing a zero-based budget, we have some $ in savings!). We had a few slip ups... my husband forgot his food on a long day of school (8am to 10pm), so he bought Subway, and I got to the grocery store for a few things and realized the cash was at home. Dave would say I should go home and get the cash, but I was just too tired from errands to actually do that!

Our original budget was off by a bit... we ran out of grocery money and dipped into the "eating out/entertainment" budget quite a bit. We actually made it through this month with only treating ourselves to pizza one night, and a "quality time" lunch at Subway another time, the rest of our eating out budget went to groceries. But we had more home-cooked meals and got creative with our recent end-of-the-month dinners! Doug made pasta with meat sauce one night and I improvised a meatloaf with turkey meat, oatmeal, and BBQ sauce (recipe to come!).

Overall, we gave ourselves a B+ for this month (we reduced from an A to an A- because we used the debit a few times, and down to a B+ since our allotted money didn't go to what it was intended). But to be honest, I am pretty darn proud of ourselves! For those out there struggling with keeping on a budget, I'd highly recommend trying the "cash journey". It's very easy to track and actually helps keep us disciplined with keeping in the budget. 

We're looking forward to next month, seeing how our trimming of last month's expenses will pay off for October, and improving our B+ up to an A. Hey, maybe even an A+ (that's when we have money left over!). On that note, I'll leave you all with a picture of our "end of the month" refrigerator"... :)