In our family, we follow a budget. EVERY Friday we hit the bank and take out the cash that we need for the week. I’ve heard of the Envelope method of carrying cash, but have always found the envelopes too bulky.
That’s why I started clipping my cash. It’s easy. It’s fast. It’s fun.
Why Should You Use Cash
If you’re trying to cut costs, save money, or get out of debt — using cash can help you spend less money. It’s simply too easy to swipe a card. When you buy things with cash, you can physically see your wallet getting slimmer. When the money runs out, you’ll be forced to STOP buying things, and won’t blow your budget.
Where To Get Your Cash Clips
You can pick up some colorful, patterned clips at Target. I’ve just placed stickers on mine to differentiate them. But you can get as crazy creative with yours as you like, or simply write LETTERS with permanent marker on them.
How We Categorize our Cash Clips
For our cash clip system, we group our cash into three main categories, but you can really create as many or as little as you like. Just be intentional!
1. Food
The RED clip is grocery store cash. When you pay for food with cash, you buy less of it. Plus it’s plain fun to hand a wad of cash to the cashier. I don’t think they see enough of the green stuff, to be honest.
2. Clothing
The Yellow Arrow is my clothing budget for the week. If I don’t spend it, then I can add it to next week’s cash. More often than not this cash is used at Goodwill. I like how I can FILL a cart with clothes there, and still have 75% of my budget left. It rocks.
3. “Mad” Money
A MAD MONEY clip is used for random spending during the week. Such as unplanned lunch out with co-workers, or a few dollars to grab a bag of chips from a vending machine. This is basically the shopping category.
What We Don’t Use cash For
There are some things we use our debit cards for. Such as gas. It’s too inconvenient to walk in to the gas station to pay cash. It’s faster to swipe a card at the pump on those snowy days, and we don’t have trouble sticking to our budget in this area.
It’s not hard to manage your cash clip system,. All you need to do is start. Come up with some categories, grab some colored clips, and get going.
