Envelope System: Month 7

Little by little we're gathering it all back together. After taking the blow of the stolen purse in March, things are still having to be fine tuned. I think, though, as of today, it's all back in order.


We, in our previous account, had some scheduled transfers that went from one account to another to be held until we had to pay our yearly payments, but for some reason, although we were assured that everything would be restored to what it has been, our accounts weren't set up so that we could transfer between them. The crazy thing was that the credit union had somehow come up with my in-laws' account and set that up for us to transfer into. How did they even know that we were related? That was kind of an interesting reality. One that didn't make me very happy. I was shocked that they would take liberties like that. It wasn't something we asked them to do as we didn't even know what their account number was.

I had also sent a fax giving account numbers and asking that it made possible for us to transfer between all of the accounts. That was back on May 21st. Today, I tried to make a transfer, and still, there was no change made. Hmm....

I went in to the branch to get the cash today and explained to the teller what was going on. She set me up with one of their reps, and it is finally all ironed out. We'll just have to work it all out when those payments come due.

I also made a firm resolve today that I was going to remove my debit cards from my purse. I keep thinking that if I just held to that to begin with, the purse situation would have been so different. **sigh**. Not sure why cutting ties with the debit cards is so difficult. I guess I have a fear of not having enough cash on hand. It makes me feel a bit insecure. But, on the other hand, if I have my debit cards with me, there's the opposite fear of spending too impulsively and too much, so I guess I have to choose the lesser of two evils. I think I'd rather have too little cash than spend money I don't have.

The other thing I did this month was a tally the money in all of the envelopes. I put it on the same spreadsheet with the budget. It feels really good to be storing up for things for the winter and for everybody's birthdays. #7's birthday is next week.

Had to put this boys picture on cuz I'm missing him right now.

With birthday envelopes, I put the same amount in each person's envelope every month now, but when it started out, I had more in some envelopes than others because of how far away their birthday was. I had to make it proportional, so one month, I took a little extra of the budget and filled some envelopes more than others. I mean, if you're starting this right now, and you've decided you want to have $120 to spend on each birthday that comes around and one person in the family has a birthday this month and another has a birthday in December, you're going to put $120 in the June birthday person's envelope and spend it this month (it will be at zero in July) and put $60 in the December and then put $10 in each envelope each month thereafter. Anything you don't spend when the birthday comes around is a bonus for the next year.

Same reason as above

Here was my great victory for this past month....We signed three children up for fall soccer. I asked one of the kids to go over and get the sports envelope. The Warden was standing there watching while this was happening. I finished the registration, pulled the envelope out, withdrew the cash and handed to the Warden asking him to please deposit it into the bank on his way to work. I could tell by his face that he was very impressed. YAY!!!  We still had money left in the envelope, so when #3 announced that she wanted to try out for the high school soccer team, there was enough to pay for her summer training. No sweat!

Originally, I had a sports envelope for each season with some seasons having more money allocated than others. I decided that this was far too complicated, so I have since combined the funds and created a "sports" envelope. Once you get your envelopes going, don't be afraid to down-size (combine envelopes), but don't make it too simplistic. I still have an envelope for "sports and school photos" because that's something I never think of until the time arrives. I could combine those, but I'm fearful that I'd spend everything I'd need for photos on the sports themselves. Then, where would we be?

Tonight, I was able to go with #1 and a $50 gift card and get her a $200 set of luggage for $30. I also found #3 a pair of soccer shorts for less than $10. YAY! I'm also fully back on board with coupons. I've found that, although I've been using fabulesslyfrugal.com and have enjoyed it, I save more money by going back to what I started out with--theobsessiveshopper.net. I really can't figure out why one site is more comfortable for me than the other. Maybe it's just because I got so used to the obsessive shopper. I somehow feel more in control with it.

Anyway, I hope this is helping somebody. It sure has helped me. Somehow blogging about it each month keeps me on track.