Question

Ok.  First time to post here.Ok. First time to post here. I officially started my TBM journey for the month of January. I didn't use all of the last sheets, as I know I didn't do everything exactly as I "should" but I want to do it all in February. Information that may or may not be important: * We get paid opposite weeks. We get a check every Friday, so we are budgeting weekly. * I'm using the bound version of the workbook * My envelopes are generally the same every week. Groceries, Gas, Babysitter, household (includes baby needs), my wife's spending money ($20 which I do not track), my spending money ($16 which I do not track because I use it on the same thing every week ) So my question is this: How do y'all track your cash envelope spending, assuming you actually use cash? I used my 4th of 4 expense tracker pages for the last two weeks in January, just to get my feet wet with it, and I filled the tracker completely. My other three trackers were used for my bank account transactions. The crazy thing is that we did a no spend January so we literally spent $0 outside of bills and our cash envelopes which are strictly budgeted. So how am I going to track my cash spending for a whole month? It's not a ton of spending. Usually 3 stores for groceries (Walmart, Aldi's, Sam's), 2 gas transactions (each of us once), the sitter, my money and my wife's money are all only 1 transaction, and then maybe 1 or 2 household transactions. While we aren't spending at lot that's still 10+ transactions a week and a tracker only has 32 lines. I really want to get February right, but this is going to be a major part of it and I can't figure out the best way. I don't love the idea of having sheets of paper outside of the bound version because I already have a lot to keep track of, and a 9 month old.  

Answer 1

For me if you have access to your online back account that should be enough. My bank actually has a feature called budget where you can see how much you spent on certain categories for the month. You can even change a category if it is wrong. For example, we get our gas at Krogers but it puts it in the groceries category so I change it to Automotive. It would be too much to do it all again. I pay all our bills online and only keep cash envelopes for savings.  

Answer 2

So far I’m tracking everything. I started in January ish but feb is my first real month. On the trackers though. I do think I will run out of space. We are weekly as well and I think that in the future I won’t track cash as much. Ive seen people who budget $400 for groceries but spend $600 etc. we only spend what we have, so it’s not like we go over. Idk if this comment is helpful. I meant it to say I see your point and am still unsure as well.  

Comments

Also I’m not using the bound version so I can print more sheets.  

Answer 3

I’ve been doing this since oct 2019. I haven’t tracked cash yet. I track it on my envelopes just to see what I have left but I haven’t used the expense trackers sheets. I rarely borrow from other envelopes so I know that I give myself $100 for groceries, and I spend exactly 100 so why track it?  

Answer 4

I may be wrong. but I don’t track my envelope spending. I designate an amount for that envelope and it goes in and is only used for that. If there is extra left over it gets added back to my beginning balance on the next budget by paycheck sheet.  

Comments

^ I do the same

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@indite same

Answer 5

I track the cash, and have made it a goal to use less space on the tracker each month. The first month I had to add extra pages. Last month I managed to keep it under the 4 provided. but barely. I have 2 checking accounts I track along with my cash so it’s not been easy. The only way I’ve been able to reduce the transactions so far is to make less trips to the store. I was making almost daily trips for stuff here and there, now I’m trying to make list and stick to it. And eat what I have already purchased. It’s been good for me. But for the first months I just used a separate paper and paper clipped it to the previous ones.  

Answer 6

Sometimes when I do food shopping and say I go to 3 different shops on the same day I would just add them together and track it as 1 payment in my tracker .  

Answer 7

I use Fudget on my phone to track. I track so I know where I'm spending my money so I can see if there are places I can cut back or if I need more in an envelope and why.  

Answer 8

I track my daily spending on the envelopes I keep the receipts in those envelopes and use the tracker for the whole amount of the envelope not each transaction. I’m still new but this is how i started doing it. for debit card transactions you can total them up by envelope type (grocery/fun/beauty) whatever’s yours are labeled and do the same thing so you don’t run out of lines.  

Answer 9

Can you just track the total spent from each envelope at the end of the month. One transaction per envelope per month.