I’ve talked to a few people over the past few days who seem to have hard time sticking to their budget. It does take a while to get into the habit of keeping track on what you spend and limit yourself to the money you allotted for groceries, entertainment and the like. One of the reasons we are having such a hard time with this in the beginning is because we are so used to using debit and credit cards to pay all the time. It’s just easy to whip out the card and pay $150 worth of groceries. The amount doesn’t’ seem quite as real as it would if you had to count out $150 in cold, hard cash…

Use that fact to your advantage by switching to the Cash System for a while. Once you’re used to spending less, you can try to go back to the more convenient debit cards. How does the Cash System work? It’s actually very simple…

Go to your bank and take out the money alloted per your budget for this week. Divide it up and stick it in envelopes labeled “Groceries” “Clothing” “Entertainment” and any other categories you’ll need to buy for this week. Don’t carry any debit or credit cards. Those will stay at home until you are in the habit of sticking to your budget. Otherwise the temptation would be too big to “just charge this”.

Then, when it comes time to go grocery shopping, just grab that envelope and go… Once the grocery money is spent, that’s it for the week (or month if you prefer). You’ll pay a lot more attention to what you are sticking in your shopping cart and since all the money you have to pay for those groceries are what’s in your budget, there’s no way to go over.

Give it a try if you are having a hard time getting used to staying within your budget. It’s an eyeopening experience that will make you realize just how much your heard earned money is really worth.