subject: Advantages of Cash Budgeting by:Ryan Windley [print this page] The first year after my wife and I were married was a financial disaster. We were living paycheck to paycheck and not seeing a solution in sight. A friend and mentor suggested we try living on a cash budget. He could tell by the confused look on my face that I had no idea what he meant by a Cash Budget.
He went on to explain the principle behind a cash budget is that you give yourself an allotted amount of cash to spend during the course of a week. The idea is that at the beginning of the week you withdraw a set amount of cash from the ATM. Throughout the course of the week you spend the cash. When the money is gone, the money is gone and you aren't able to replenish the funds until the first of the week back rolls around.
My wife and I thought this sounded like a good ideas and committed to giving the Cash Budget for two months. We started the next Monday by pulling out enough cash (so we thought) to last until the end of the weekend. As the first few days passed, we spent the money on groceries, gas, and other various expenses. As Thursday morning broke, we realized that we had run out of money. "Now what do we do," we thought.
