by a.b.
So after my first “envelope outing” I have to say I already have serious concerns on the effectiveness of the envelope system. As I previously mentioned, Mr. B and I are trying a modified envelope system, using the paper enforcers only for food and gas. It’s a lot harder than I thought.
First of all, I have allotted $120 every two weeks for us, including any paper goods. I started this at the worst possible time; the cupboards were bare. I spent $75 dollars for this week’s foodstuffs, which in my opinion isn’t bad. (I can certainly do better, and will.) We were out of cheese, milk, olive oil, meat, butter, pretty much every staple outside of flour.
The hard thing for me is to decide how to allot monthly items. Obviously we won’t go through two pounds of cheese in a week, but I’m not going to weigh the cheese at the end of the week to see how much was used.
I’ve decided to try this for at least eight weeks to give it a fair try. The main deficiencies I’ve determined are all mine: hesitance, confusion, lack of planning. I’m pretty sure if I can get on the ball, the envelope system will cut our food bills substantially and allow us to track our car bills better. Like everything else though, it is work.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
We have used the envelope system for a long time (three years)–it's the only way I will actually stick to my grocery budget (and even then there are ways around it). It does take tons of planning!
Right now I am trying to spend $80 a week on groceries and household stuff–yes too low in my opinion, but I'm trying! So even though I have $160 in my envelope, I only spend $80. Some weeks I enforce this down to the penny and it works great!
Sometimes I approach it another way: if my cupboards and freezer are bare, I will spend most of my $160 in the first week (especially if I can get great deals on meat), and we will eat on that for two weeks. I just save around $30 for the next week to buy milk, bread, produce. Works for me.
It's not clear to me what you're having trouble with in using the envelopes. If you spent $75 on groceries the first week, then you only have $45 for the second week.
Am I missing something?
@Jen:Yeah, the planning part is where I keep stumbling. But I'll get the hang of it.
@Bucksome: It is that simple, but since I keep cash in the envelope, and only enough for one week at that, it felt like I went over budget right out of the gate. Now I know, I need to put at least two weeks in the envelope for normal flux.