Cash stuffing

[Steppingintome]

Does anybody do this? It used to be called the cash envelope system but all over tik tok and insta it’s now called cash stuffing.

Basically you draw out your budget in cash for the month/week. Then you have a different envelope or wallet labelled with each bill then put in your budget for each. Any money left over gets split into extras like treats, beauty or a holiday.

Each time you spend on this bill you take out what you need from the envelope. At the end of the week/month if there’s any cash left in the bill envelopes you put it into savings.

Im going to give it a go as I don’t seem to spend as much with cash. Tapping my card seems too easy. Does anyone else do this? Does it help you? Any tips?

Didn't there used to be a whole tv programme about this in the 90s? It's definitely a method that's been around for decades. It seems simple and effective to me. And I can definitely see how using cash makes a difference.

I don't but Ive seen the videos

I suspect that paying in cash is more wideaspread in the US, how would you pay your utilities etc in cash or would you do it after those kind of monthly costs?

Dave Ramsey - The Ramsey Show - has been using this method for over 3 decades. Rachel Cruze has various videos about it... and use it with a zero based budget. See this video about zero based budget:

Using it just for some categories is useful, such as food. Many of your expenses these days are by direct debit, and there may be categories in which you find you do not over spend, clothing perhaps.

Sounds like a lot of faff, and creates myriad opportunities to mislay the cash or be pick-pocketed.

Also I pay all my bills on-line and use credit cards for all purchases in order to gain points.

So I suppose it depends how good you are at spending within your means.

I only learnt about it last year (also via IG) but have seen more people do it 'digitally' with banking apps like Monzo, that let you create lots of pots (envelopes) and not need to withdraw cash or keep lots of it in your house.

I did it myself combined with sinking funds (also was a new thing to me) last year, and it helped cover our hastily-planned summer holiday.

The videos of actual cash stuffing are very satisfying to watch, though now I try to keep mine as online pots.

Dave Ramsey! Yes I remember him.

My bank offers a feature where you can put set amount in ‘pots’ so i would probably do this for utilities and just use the cash for food, hair and beauty, clothes etc. To be honest these are the areas I tend to overspend in as utilities are set payments usually.

Considering nearly everywhere near me is card only this wouldn’t work

Not sure how it works as I pay utilities on direct debit and rarely use cash as have to shop online more than in person.

I have a cash budget each month but this is separate to bills. I try to allow myself £5 a day "spending money" and take this out as cash at the start of the month. If I don't spend it in the day I put it away or towards a bigger purchase later on in the month. If I spend more than £5 then obvs I will be short later on in the month. I have managed to save nearly £700 so far this year (which I am pleased with as I have had a necklace custom-made for a special anniversary!) Next I am going to save for a new bike to start cycling to work.

Wow well done @MrsT84 £700 is fab. Good luck with saving for the bike!!

Exactly the same for me. I rarely use cash.

I use a spreadsheet to budget.

I used to do it in "the old days" and found it very useful as I wasn't earning very much and paid weekly. I lived with a flatmate so had to be sure I had rent, rates, electric, TV, laundromat, put by.

I probably wouldn't if I was paid monthly but it definitely helps if you are paid weekly.

I think this would work if I took cash out for food, fuel and any extras for the month. It would definitely keep me more on track for food which I'm spending a lot on at the moment.

You should see whether you can access the Cycle to Work scheme through your employer (assuming you're an employee).

We tried it at the start of 2020 and it took some getting used to.
Then pandemic started and lots only took cards.

I can see the value in cash it is much easier to control money.

I track every spend in spending diary and add up each category end of month its horrifying.
I also do a monthly budget
Online banking and lots savings account also helped me.

I think weeks ok variable spend

So clothes/health/ beauty/food/ personal allowance/ back to school/ gifts and Xmas.

We paying off debt so currently use a small credit card fund majority of grocery bill and pay to 0 husband monthly pay day.
This means we accrue 0 interest and allows us pay off extra £500 debt cash flows from salary.
Once we debt free may reveiw this.
I get paid weekly and use mix debit card but often take out little cash each week as I love to go jumble sales.
Since my teens got bank accounts I use cash even less.
We pay pocket money and bus money via bank transfer.

I do this with an app called hyperjar and it’s brilliant

It was how most people budgeted up until maybe the 1980s/1990s when being paid into the bank became more common. I love how people on TikTok who weren't even born then talk about this sort of thing as if it's something new and revolutionary.

People would get their wages in cash on a Friday and would separate it out to pay rent, heating, food and other essentials and if they were lucky, might have a small amount spare for a treat over the weekend.

I agree that it would be difficult to do these days as many places are card only but you could do a similar thing using different bank accounts and pots. This also has the advantage of less risk of loss/theft of your cash and gives you information about what you spend in your accounts/apps.

Once you've worked out your budget, you could have:

An account for monthly direct debits
An account/pot for day to day essentials like food, travel costs
An account/pot for annual and irregular expenses like Christmas, school uniforms, other essential DC costs, insurance, car running costs, white goods replacement etc
An account/pot for joint spending money if you're a family, so days out, food and drink out of the house
An emergency fund/longer term/larger expenses pot, eg to cover loss of income, car replacement, home improvements etc

And finally, once all the above has been covered, your discretionary spending money that covers personal non essentials, whether small regular ones, or bigger ones as and when.

But of course that takes away the opportunity to make a nice video about it.

It’s not new, I did it years ago as did my mother and women of her generation. She divided her money into rent/rates , food, gas, elec and savings. Bank accounts were for rich people, my dad was paid weekly via the wage packet system. The envelopes were kept in a locked box. The ‘savings’ were for clothes, school lunches, bus fares etc.
DH has a spreadsheet: utilities are paid via DD We put everything onto a credit card and pay it off in full every month.
like another poster we withdraw a limited amount of cash as we like to have some in our pocket/purse.
DH has a big savings jar, any loose change goes into that and it’s surprising how much it mounts up.

Cross posted with BarbaraofSeville.

OP never said this was a new revolutionary budgeting method, just that it's having a resurgence on social media at the moment.

I'm not interested in doing this but I have been thinking about switching back to cash for my daily spending. Just putting a couple hundred in my bag for the week. I think that it's much easier to spend more money mindlessly when I'm tapping for everything. I was reading recently about a takeaway who switched from cash only to card only and significantly increased their profits.

It's the people on TikTok who seem to think it's revolutionary.

But for everyone who says they find easier to spend mindfully with cash, there's someone else who says that if they break a note for a small spend, the rest of it evaporates, so instead of the couple of quid they could have put on a card, they've somehow spent £20, apparently with nothing to show for it.

In reality, however you pay for something, the effect is the same. At the risk of stating the obvious, small spends can add up to a significant amount if you do it often enough, which is probably what people are generally trying to control.

So it's a good idea to identify where your money is going, and if you find you're spending more than you expected on one particular area, and you need/want to spend less, work out how you can do this, either by doing the thing less often, maybe by switching to a cheaper alternative, eg sometimes getting a nice supermarket pizza instead of one from a takeaway or by reducing the cost of whatever you buy - eg buying multipacks of drinks and snacks from the supermarket instead of individually from a convenience store.

I don't see how you could pay your bills in cash. Seems easier to set them all as direct debits to go out the day after your paid.

I'm with Starling bank, and that lets me create separate "pots" of money, and I can attach a virtual card to each pot. I haven't actually tried this, but I think you can use the card over-the-counter with Google/Apple pay on a phone.

Once a pot is empty the card stops working. It sounds like your method, but for the modern world.

Yes I know it’s nothing new. When I started working I got paid in a brown paper envelope in cash on a Friday haha. I had to separate my money as did my dad before me. But that seems to have been lost now we are ‘tapping’ for everything.

I agree some bills are best paid DD and I will continue to have these go out. But having cash for food, clothes etc will help me spend less as I have to get off my backside and go to a shop lol. It will help me food shop less and get everything I need rather than expensive top up shops from the Co-Op.

Also easier to send the teenagers to the shop for milk if we run out with a £2 coin knowing they won’t get a sneaky can of Coke and a packet of crisps (that we have in the fridge and cupboard) with my card ;)

I don't use cash at all. except for a few coins for car parks. I analyse spending which is very easy when you pay everything by card as you can download the transaction list from online banking, and sort/analyse it into suppliers/shops/categories etc. When you have your spending for last week, last month, last year, last decade, written in front of you, it helps concentrate your mind on spending patterns etc.

i have used this method for years for one off bills like car tax, insurances, christmas, tv licence, birthdays and then one for emergencys.It works great for me.If i need to pay the bill online i just put the money back into the bank it also saves the money that some companies charge for paying monthly.
Keeping the money separate means it doesn't get spent on other things