Dave Ramsey Would Be So Proud

I don't know if y'all are familiar with Dave, but I just love the guy. I've skimmed a couple of his books and tune into his radio show when I'm in the car in the afternoons. He makes me laugh and his words encourage me to keep on the financial straight and narrow. I'm usually all, "Right on, Dave! You tell 'em!" as he advises callers. That is, except when it comes to credit cards.

He hates them. With an unwavering, fiery passion. And me? I'm kind of a fan of my plastic. It's so convenient. So quick. I don't have to keep up with cash and try to remember where I spent it. And we earn points and get cash back!

Besides, goes my mental retort, that "no credit card" advice is really meant for those who spend money they don't have. Outside of our mortgage we've never carried any debt. We budget carefully and spend accordingly. We should be exempt from that rule.

From the beginning of our marriage Jeff and I have worked hard to communicate well about money, work as a team to make financial decisions and spend our resources in a way that honors the Lord and reflects our priorities. I feel that we've done fairly well.

But time is a precious commodity these days and it is getting harder and harder to regularly discuss exactly where we are. Tonight we sat down to do our budget reconciliation and decided that something has to give. As the one who does the majority of the spending, I need to have more real-time info on how much money is in each budget category than is available to me when we meet only once a month or less. Jeff is busier at work than ever so finding time to go through all our credit card statements and figure out what charges go to which category is increasingly difficult.

I hesitantly offered to take over the job of reconciling the credit card statements and updating the budget. The problem is that Jeff not only is much better at all things regarding numbers but he likes things done a certain way so he can look back at his data, run reports, plan for the future, etc. The other problem is I don't really WANT to do it.

Enter the Envelope System. I'm sure you're all familiar with how this works. At the beginning of the month we will take out actual CASH (yes, the green, papery stuff) and allot the budgeted amount for each category to separate envelopes. Then, when I need to buy something, I take the money from the appropriate envelope and spend it. Done.

I have a tendency to feel stressed, guilty or anxious about spending money when I don't know where we are budget-wise. Unfortunately, I am terrible at keeping a running tab in my head or estimating what I've spent over days and weeks. Now there is no getting online to check accounts or calling to ask Jeff or trying to recall how many times we've eaten out in the past three weeks. The beauty of the new system is that at any time I can take a little peek in any envelope and know how much money we have for the rest of the month.

In the past we've discussed taking this approach, but I had many reasons it wouldn't work for me. A few months ago I went to cash for groceries and I've been loving it. I know there will be challenges and frustrations (a few of my concerns still linger) but I look forward to trying to implement cash only for the rest of our variable expenses.

Now, we aren't quite ridding our lives of plastic completely. We will still use cards for gassing up the cars and most of our bills which are charged automatically. But maybe, just maybe, we can eventually move everything to debit cards.

Then Dave would really love us.

The cash budget officially begins in two weeks. Wish us luck! And, if you are willing to share, tell me how you keep track of where your money goes. What do you like/not like about your current system?