Why I Use the Cash Envelope Method & Why it May Help You

Good morning!!

Last time we talked I let you guys know a little bit about why I have to set a budget for myself. If you don't know, go read my last post here!
If you clicked on this post, you might be wondering what the heck is the cash envelope method and why does she use it? So here are my top 5 reasons you might want to start using the cash envelope method.

First, you may be wondering.. what is the cash envelope method? This is a method where you separate your money after you've paid bills into different categories based on what you think you will need before the next time you get paid. These are called variable expenses. The categories I know I have to have money set aside for every month are groceries, gas, Raelee, me time, beauty, savings and miscellaneous. Your categories may be the same or different and can be anything that you know you need or want to budget for that month! Now, let's get into WHY this method has helped me and might help you also.

1. It's no secret that I like to spend money. Well, I like to get things with my money, not necessarily spend it. When I exclusively used my debit card it was impossible to keep track of what money I was spending when I would swipe it. I might be at Target to buy toilet paper but I walked out with new cleaning supplies, clothes for my daughter, a new purse, granola bars and a new lipstick. So when I planned in my head that I was going in to spend a certain amount but coming out with more, then I'm dipping into money that was designated for other things like groceries or gas. But you don't know that until you've already spent it and then it's the 15th and you have two weeks to make $12 last in your gas tank. That was my life eeeeevery time I got paid, so that is the primary reason I now have to physically separate my money.

2. Security. Something you may have a hard time wrapping your head around is how to feel comfortable with your checking account balance being lower than you're used to. I still have to remind myself that even though I only have X amount in my account, all my necessities are taken care of and safe because I've set aside the exact amount I will need in my envelopes. It's extremely psychological. You can't expect to retrain your brain into thinking a different way in a week or a month or even a year. Like I said, I've been using this method for around 3 years and I still have to reassure myself sometimes that "I have enough money." You can rest assured that if you've separated your necessary expenses in your envelopes that you won't accidentally spend it somewhere else and you won't have to scrounge up change at the end of the month to get a coffee with a friend because you've already budgeted everything you may need.

3. No surprises. Of course there may be some months that random things come up that you hadn't budgeted for. That's life. But what I love about this method is you can even budget for when those things happen! I keep a cushion in my checking account at all times of around $100 in case I need to use my card somewhere I couldn't use cash or had to spend a bit more than I had budgeted (I was already doing this, but it's a method The Budget Mom uses also!). I also use my miscellaneous envelope for unplanned expenses like running out of laundry detergent that you hadn't budgeted for.. or your kid brings home a flier for a school t-shirt they really want and you have to turn the money in by Friday. Again, going back to security, having those little tricks for unexpected expenses helps me not have anxiety about what's to come.

4. I'm in charge. Going back to this being super psychological, I really enjoy dictating where my money goes. My willpower no longer decides how much I'm going to save that month or what I'm going to spend at Ulta. I decide on an amount at the beginning of the month or whenever I get paid, and that's what I have to stick with. So in those times when you feel weak or forget how much you wanted to spend, the work has already been done and you are in control. Your money goes where you tell it to go!

5. Cash comes in handy. So many people say "Oh I never have cash." or "I never carry cash." This is because they just use their debit card all the time. Well, have you ever realized sometimes it's nice to have cash on hand like when you go to a high school sports event and you need $6 to get in? Or you realize in the drop off line it's popcorn day at school and your kid needs at least $3 to get popcorn, a drink, cotton candy and a pixie stick? These are times your debit card will do nothing for you. So cash can be extremely handy! Also, I've found it is MUCH easier for me to set aside money for savings in cash. It's something about not having to watch my overall balance go down because I'm taking some money away to save.. and it feels GOOD to have that money in your hand and put it somewhere. It's hard to explain, but it's true. Then once you have a good little nest egg saved up, being able to count it by hand and feel it makes it seem like your goals are coming to fruition more than just looking at a balance in your account.

So there are my top 5 reasons I think this method rocks. Hopefully this motivates you a little bit or helped you understand what it's all about. There are several ways to organize your cash, including physical envelopes, but I actually use a small accordion coupon organizer myself. A friend let me in on this little tip back when I started this method and it's definitely one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get started. There are some really cool special cash envelope wallets on Etsy, Amazon, etc but they're usually around $40+ and when you're just starting out and trying to save money, not spend it, getting the super cute wallet isn't really necessary ;).

I'll include a link below for the accordion type of organizer in case you want to try it out!

Coupon Organizer

From a mom who was addicted to spending....

Hi everyone!

Welcome back! It's been a minute since I got on here with all the crazy from the holidays so it feels good to be typing again.

Something that's been on my mind a LOT lately..not even lately.. more like the last couple of years.. is my spending habits. So probably like most women, I really enjoy buying cute/nice things. I love makeup, jewelry, clothes, pretty pens, purses, things for my house, clothes for my daughter.. sometimes I even enjoy buying boring things like a new ink cartridge for my printer or a mop for the house because it feels THAT good to buy something.. ANYTHING.

This habit goes way back. I've always loved getting new happy things and when I was a teenager I wasn't really able to go shopping a lot or buy a bunch of cute things to decorate my room so I just couldn't WAIT to be an adult and buy whatever I wanted when I wanted.

After I had my daughter I got my first real "adult" job with a bank. Thankfully while I was there I did gather a few things about how to somewhat take care of your money. I at least learned that you should pay your loan payments on time and not overdraw your account. There's a start. But I was always under the impression that debt was okay. I couldn't WAIT until I got my credit up enough to be able to have a real credit card. "I can go to the store and buy all kinds of things and then just make small payments later on to pay it off?! SIGN. ME. UP." Buy now pay later sounded like the American dream, lol.

Fast forward a few years and once Steven and I got engaged we started premarital counseling with a close family friend and pastor of ours. One thing she offered to help with was budgeting and I thought that was a great idea because she seemed to have a lot of knowledge to give and Steven and I really hadn't talked much or thought much about how we would budget once we got married. She introduced us to Dave Ramsey's principles and the cash envelope method. She explained everything to us and how it could help and told us how much debt her and her husband had paid off because of those methods and I was BLOWN AWAY! I was immediately addicted to the idea of doing exactly that! When I was single I had racked up one or two small balance credit cards trying to stay afloat and then Steven and I had a couple that we got while we were dating/engaged to pay for different things we didn't have the money for at the time. So thanks to our mentor, we were able to pay off the smallest cards in our first year of marriage and build up our 1,000 dollar emergency fund and gain a general understanding of what to do with our money. Time is a funny thing though, and we got lazy with our methods after about a year. There were some months I would forget to go get my cash out of the bank so I'd just live off my debit card and end up blowing all my money on stupid things when I didn't have groceries or gas yet, etc. I learned that I needed the cash envelope system back in my life.

So I've been using the cash envelope system for about three years now and even though I haven't followed all the baby steps and rules to a T, it has helped me realize so many things about my spending.

I realized quite a while ago that when I was stressed, mad, upset, or bored I would almost instinctively immediately head to TJ Maxx, Walmart, Hobby Lobby, or somewhere to blow a quick 10-30 dollars on something to cheer myself up. It's never hardly expensive, but once I realized the pattern, my gut told me there was an underlying issue I was covering up by buying pretty things. But then there's the other side of your brain that says "But I don't want to stop doing that... it feels so good to buy something new..." So I wrestled back and forth with that for months. I would buy something and then have immediate buyers remorse because I knew I could have used my money somewhere else for our family. The guilt got so bad that I would even feel anxiety if I spent money on something tiny ($5 or less) or for a planned expense. I hated this feeling but I realized it was because I knew most of the time no matter how small or large the purchase, I was doing it for the wrong reasons and not making paying off debt or saving my first priority.

I didn't really have any super specific New Years resolutions for 2019 but once I sat down and tried to think about some goals I should reach for, the first thing that came to mind was that this year I want to be the most responsible I've ever been with my finances. I had dipped my toe in, but not really fully committed to a full time budget. So because of that, I got on Pinterest and YouTube and discovered The Budget Mom! After watching one or two of her videos I immediately knew her methods were perfect for me! She utilizes the cash envelope system but also budgets every time she gets paid, not just once a month. I HIGHLY recommend looking her up and looking into her Budget by Paycheck Workbook and even some of her free resources on her blog! It is completely changing my habits and holding me 100% accountable to making every dollar have a purpose!

So if you're anything like me and use spending as a way to cheer yourself up or you just want to do more with your money, I'll be sharing a lot about my budgeting journey here so hopefully it will help some of you like it did me! I can't include everything I want to talk about in this one post or it would be 1000 pages long.. so stay tuned!!

Kellie

Who doesn't love a good DIY organizing project?! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's when something in my house just isn't working. Like my closet for instance. I LOVE our little house and I am so proud that I bought it by myself when I was single, but I underestimated how vital closet space is. Each bedroom in the house has one closet that is just short of 4 feet wide... except the master bedroom which has two 4 foot closets side by side...functional. AND THAT'S IT. No linen closet, coat closet, not one! Up until this point, we've stored anything extra in our "spare bedroom" aka the room that's door is always shut so no one can see how much crap we have. When the baby gets here, that room will be his or her room.. while this is exciting, it's a problem, lol.

So right now, Steven has one of the master closets and I have the other. I am supposed to fit all my hoodies, coats, long sleeve shirts, short sleeve, dresses, tank tops, jeans, sweats, shoes, purses, bags in a FOUR FOOT CLOSET. Impossible. I've lived in this house 3 and a half years and I've pretty much ignored this closet situation until now. Last year sometime I did add a second closet rod on the bottom half of the closet so I could hang more things like my jeans and bigger jackets, but thanks to my not so impressive handy woman skills I installed the rod about 6 inches too low... so my jeans are always dragging the ground, making it extremely annoying to make myself hang up my clothes down there.

Now that we are expecting baby #2 I've decided the entire house's storage situation needs to be dealt with permanently. So I'm slowly working my way from room to room. This week after hours of searching online for some type of solution for just the bottom of my closet, I finally found a shelf/cubby system on Amazon that I thought might just do it. Forty bucks and two day shipping and VOILA! Time to do some damage.

So I'm horrible about being so excited to start a project that I dive straight in and forget to take a before picture... but I think I pretty much explained what the bottom of the closet looked like. Crowded, dysfunctional, pants hanging crooked off hangers and dragging the floor, piles of clothes stuffed in the corners because that's what my husband does with clothes that I leave in the floor or next to the bed :). He's a real problem solver lol. The closet annoys me so badly that I've stopped doing any more laundry than one load at a time even when my hamper is full (always) because I don't want to have to hang things up and look at the stupid closet situation, lol pathetic.

I am proud to say that after about 30 minutes of building the shelf, another 15 minutes to raise up the hanging rod about 6 inches, and 20 minutes to fold and reassemble where everything goes, bippety boppety boo it is DONE!!

One project down, probably 35 to go, but I'm making progress! Next will be adding more shelves and hanging room in our laundry room so I can store seasonal decorations and clothes in there. Man what a set up, lol. That project will require help from my husband so I'm sure he will be thrilled ;). His solution to all of this is "How about you just get rid of your stuff?" Yeah okay Steve. As if the 10 bags I've already donated aren't enough!! That's a rant for another blog ;)
If you have any other tips for storage in an extremely limited space, HIT. ME. UP.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!

Feeling Thankful

Hey everyone!

With Thanksgiving approaching this week, it's got me in an extra festive thankful mood, which is never a bad thing. To name a few, I think I'm definitely most thankful for my husband, my kid(s) ;), dependable jobs, and always my family even though we aren't much for size anymore.
I can remember years when I was pregnant with Raelee and when she was young when I didn't have an extra dime to my name for Christmas shopping even just for her. It wasn't the worst possible situation to be in of course, but it's disheartening when all you want is to give your child everything in the world. I'm very thankful for how far we've come in the last seven years.

So normally I'm a pretty hardcore Black Friday shopper. I look forward to it ALL year. I scope out all the sales and decide what is most worth sitting in line for and I commit to that. Last year it was a $300 Smart TV from Walmart. You can't beat the electronic sales that go on during Black Friday. It even had my husband excited for it and anyone close to him knows he hates crowds, waiting in lines, and shopping, lol. This year I have a few items on my list, but I think I'm going to stick to buying online for the most part, just because being pregnant and not knowing how I will feel from day to day, I don't think waiting in line for a few hours sounds like a great idea. Friday morning I plan to leisurely shop all the sales at normal people shopping time just for fun and to gather any good Christmas gifts I can. Or let's be honest I might just buy for myself... but I am going to try my hardest NOT to. 'Tis better to GIVE than to RECEIVE Kellie!!

I got my Christmas tree up last week because it snowed so of course you just want to sit inside and watch the snow fall with the glow of the Christmas tree on!! I couldn't help it. I love Thanksgiving just as much as anyone but the tree had to happen. I unknowingly married the Grinch so he walks in the house while Rae and I are putting the ribbon on the tree and he was like "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Get on board Scrooge, it's happening. Plus, it's one less thing I have on my to-do list this month. And it provides a night light for the 3 times a night I have to a. get up and eat a snack or b. go to the bathroom thanks to my pregnant body bladder. It's really a win win.

I have to say what I'm most thankful for this week is Thanksgiving break! Sometimes I dislike school breaks because that means my child is home and I have to entertain her when I have a million other things to do on top of work, but I'm realizing more lately that it means I don't have to get out and take her to school when it's freezing and I'm tired. AND as an added bonus, we don't have activities like dance this week either so we get a whole lotta free time that we aren't used to! Halleluuuuujah for that!!

What's your favorite part about Thanksgiving? Other than the usual "being with family." I love hearing the funny or outside the box things we all look forward to!

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading :) and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

A season of change

Hey everyone! Long time, no blog, right? 😬 I wasn’t lying when I said I’m a bit of an under achiever, lol. A lot has changed in the last two years. After working as a trainer in a gym for a year, we took a leap of faith and opened my own on our property. Literally my DREAM!! It’s been SO much fun. Some of the best parts of it have been that I can wear whatever I want, set my own hours, take off when I want, and be home if Raelee needs me because I’m only about 10 feet away from our house! I had no idea God would give me such an incredible calling and the most loyal clients everrrr! So as a lot of you may know, Raelee is now in first grade (yes I know I’m shocked we made it through that first pre-k year 🤣). It’s literally taken us two years to get SOME of this school stuff down. This is the area in my life that really hasn’t changed, haha. I’m still rollin’ up to the school in sweats, no makeup, sloppy hair, just trying to shove her through the door before 8:05. For any other moms whose kids will be going into first grade next year, you may want to prep them for all the change that comes with it. I hear about it DAILY. “All we do is WORK!” “We only get like 2 minutes for lunch mommy!!” “I have to do SO many papers!!” Man it’s rough being 6. So yeah don’t worry, I still have the same dramatic daughter and I don’t think she will ever change. We’ve learned to live with it 😆. Something else that’s been exciting this year is that after months of attempted bribery, begging, pleading, guilting conversations with my husband, we’re finally having a baby!!! 😂 Y’all he’s an only child so he was kind of terrified, but I managed to get my way once again 😈. I think he might leave me if we have another girl... but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I don’t know why he thinks having a boy would be so much better. I mean sure he has to sit through all Raelee’s home concerts in her pajamas singing and dancing to JoJo or some other random YouTube kids, but he’s gotten pretty good at it. She even makes him score her handstands in the living room on a scale from 1-10. Who needs to watch football or have time to yourself when you could be witnessing a two and a half second handstand you’ve seen 40 other times? For everyone who’s asked, I’m not swaying one way or the other as far as if I want a boy or a girl. I know God will give us exactly what we need so I’m just excited for all of it! We find out what we’re having on November 30th, baby cooperation willing, and I am counting down the days!!! It’s all over from there. All my money will be spent on tiny clothes, shoes, and decor for his or her room. 😍 The last month and a half has been challenging to say the least. I found out I was pregnant on September 14th and about two weeks after that the sickness hit HARD. Every free moment I had was spent on the couch or in bed sleeping just to escape the nausea. I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to make it. Thank goodness for my husband because I didn’t do any of my own laundry for at least a month. He kept up with it for me and Raelee both. 😭 Finally, after having my first doctor’s appointment around 10 weeks I was able to get some medicine to give me some relief. The past two weeks have me feeling like the sickness and horrible fatigue might be passing! Fingers crossed!!! Gah I just want to be able to make myself a meal without feeling like I could pass out! I definitely forgot how awful the first trimester can be. This baby better be freakin cute because I feel like giving it a spankin’ and it’s not even here yet!!! Lol So that’s the update. I’m sure all my clients are tired of hearing me whine about prego symptoms so this will be my new outlet 😜 Until next time!

It's Only the Beginning

Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of, right? Uh....not if you ask anyone who has one. :)

My name is Kellie and I play mom to an incredibly spunky, smart, and independent tiny human named Raelee Grace. As a side note, I am also a new wife, personal trainer, and somewhat of an aspiring singer.  By aspiring I mean I love to do it but feel like I might throw up if anyone throws a solo my way. 

I became a mom at 19 years old.  Everything seemed pretty easy until we hit the infamous age of three.  Terrible twos got ya worried? Juuuuuust wait. (insert evil laugh here)

Age three had some great memories but most of them involved me sobbing uncontrollably on the phone with my mom yelling "Please come help me!!" It was an adventure for sure.  Once we got the potty training down, I feel like things started to turn around.  My three-nager did however become a four-nager, so I didn't completely escape.  

We started pre k this year (and I say WE because school involves about 70% of parental involvement in 3-5 activities per week) and it's been great!  I really can't believe how much Raelee has learned in such a short amount of time.  

I'm one of those people who seriously sucks at teaching my kid anything.  I lack patience..a lot of it.. I have great intentions but thank the Lord for qualified professionals who willingly lock themselves in a room with forty tiny humans and teach them things.


Thank. The. Lord.

I was so excited to be the "fun young mom" of pre k.  My fantasy was a bit blurred though.  I've turned out to be more of the sloppy, sleepy, consistently late, but super loving mom.  That last part counts for a lot, right?? I look around at some of the other moms bringing their kids in the door and some of them have two in a stroller, one on the hip, and two walking into classrooms and the mom has her hair down and fixed, makeup on, and she's wearing JEANS.  Jeans?!  Who does that?!!

We're lucky if we can sprint through the front doors of the school before the 8:15 bell and when that happens I'm wearing the sweatpants I wore to bed the night before and a messy bun on top of my head with lines from my pillow on my face in place of makeup.  I try so hard.  

The MOST important part of my morning is to get the tiny person out of bed, help her get dressed, complete all her morning routine rituals, eat a good breakfast, and be in the car with a smile on her face before 8:00.  However, between the hairstyle meltdowns because she wanted an Elsa braid and I did a low bun, the alligator tears because we're out of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or the always fun argument about what jacket she is going to wear to school because all her friends will HATE the somewhat expensive Gap hoodie that I just thought was so adorable when I bought it.  No.  She has to wear the jean jacket because it matches her friend Alyssa. (insert rolling eyes here)

In summary, pre k has definitely proven to have its share of laughs and tears and we aren't even halfway through the year.

Follow me on my journey of trying to be the Pinterest savvy, creative, always on time and always over achieving mom that I aspire to be.  This will not happen, but we can have some laughs along the way while I try. ;)