25 July 2010

Makin' Bacon

I don't know about you, but I'm terrible at managing money. I'm bringing home the bacon, but that's about as far as I'm getting with it. I need to figure out how to track my spending in order to be more responsible with my money.

To change that, I'm trying the "envelope method", which my grandparents used successfully their whole life together. According to your paycheck, you budget an amount for the things you will need -- for example, gas money. Then you take that money and put it in an envelope to carry with you, one envelope per category. The rest goes into savings. When the envelope is empty, that's your limit! It's a hard and fast way to curb wasteful spending.

For me, the thing I'm most excited about is making an envelope specifically for giving back to my chapter of Intervarsity and to my home church. I know that God will use my money to bless other people and that I'll be even more blessed than I already am! (Hope you don't think I sound hoity-toity, I really earnestly want to give back.) I've been inspired by recently finishing Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. He has some great insights on money and how to handle it in regards to your faith.

What about you? Are you a money master or are you failing at reconciling your checkbook like I am? (I don't even know how to reconcile a checkbook. Oops.)

3 comments:

  1. Hey Stephanie! It's nice to see somebody else my age trying to make sense of our checkbooks! I thought about the envelope method, but I'm nervous about trying it. Let us know how it goes! I personally have started couponing and it is incredible how much money I save! I started a blog about how I manage our family budget if you want to check it out :)
    It's at anotherwaytosave.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should get a trendy looking coupon holder with those little folders in it. Then you won't have to carry around 6 envelopes and you will have an aesthetically pleasing pattern to look at.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Amanda: Great to hear from you, I just saw some photos of your little guy on Facebook -- what a doll. I just looked at your blog and that is great! I'm gonna have to start getting things for free too! Thank you for the advice, and I'll have an update when I get going on this!

    @Ashley, I totally love that idea. Envelopes would wear out really easily, but any other method doesn't have that physical presence in your purse. Good plan!

    ReplyDelete