Does anyone else take out cash to help manage money?

[Proudtocare3562]

This is the only thing that's worked for us and thought id share as it really helps to budget in my opinion. Every week we take out the money in cash for food and petrol. Seeing the money in your hand and how much is left I find really helps me budget. Its too easy to zap your card here and there and not keep tabs. The only thing is we can't do online doing this but have been going to lidls and its working well.

I also pay termly for my children's clubs but i am taking out the monthly amount in cash and putting it in envelopes so when it's time to pay again i have the money ready instead of a huge bill which I haven't budgeted for.

Are we the only ones that are old school and do this? I always remember my mum having tins for different things when we were younger.

I used to do that. I think the modern equivalent is pots of cash on Monzo. I wish I stil did as paying the kids activies has been painful this month. Eleven week term.

I don't know about Monzo. Will Google!

I don’t but have been considering it.

Started doing this nearly 40 years ago. It got us out of debt and it paved our way to budget. Well done 👍🏼

No, I don't want to use cash. I just budget with a spreadsheet so know exactly what I have left at any given time.

I just opened several accounts with RBS and divvy the money up into them. No chance of losing it then.

I prefer having actual cash in the house, allocated to each invoice, but I know I’m very much in the minority!!

We only use this for food/petrol and clubs. If we are lucky enough to have some to save that goes in a account, I don't store any cash like that at home.

I've tried to do this. My issue is that more places seem to be going cash free. I tried to buy a pint of milk from Waitrose and was told they don't accept cash. Same thing happened at a coffee shop near me. Tesco was equally a nightmare because the queues at the till were so long. I now try to restrict my spending to one day a week and buy all my groceries on that day. I find it really helps me to think about what I'm buying and how much I actually need something.

It's all fine keeping cash in envelopes until you get robbed. I do it digitally through monzo.

There are digital equivalents today that will do same without needing the cash.

Please can people tell me more about Monzo and how you use it

monzo.com/help/budgeting-overdrafts-savings/what-is-a-pot

I have monzo as a secondary bank account, I have about 10 saving pots sets up that I pay money into regularly, car insurance, holiday, home improvements etc. It's free so give it a go and see how you get on with it.

Yes we did this for a long time when we had a difficult money situation and we still do it from time to time when we want to rein things in.

We would withdraw the weekly amounta nd split between envelopes for food, travel, leisure and see how much we could manage to retain at the end of the week. It worked for us.

This is a tactic used by debt management organisations, such as Christians Against Poverty.

The idea is that you only spend what you have.

It must have been difficult during the cashless lockdown.

I did this pre Covid but then cash use became a problem. I've definitely been spending more when I can just tap my card. I think I am going to go back to weekly cash withdrawals too. It's so much easier to budget.

Yes we used to do this when money was very tight and it worked really well for us. It is so easy to overspend on a card. Might go back to now food prices are noticeably increasing.

I find the opposite. My brain doesn't register cash as real money. Once it leaves my account in my mind its spent/gone. I'm far more frivolous with cash than card.

I’m the same as WorkCleanRepeat. I can manage it better when it’s in my account rather than cash. I use an app called Fudget. It’s just a list of my incomes and expenditures for the month and I cross them off as I pay each one. That way I don’t forget that there’s something still to come out of my account during the month.

I daily check my bank account and make sure all DD are out and then dump cash in a savings account so my balance looks ‘low’ then I try and budget the rest of the month as if I’m ‘poor’ only spending at the end of the month - which I try not to do - this means any essential spends (school shoes) are taken care of first and extra spends are what’s left. I works and I’ve managed to pay off credit and save ££££ over the last two years.

MIL has a friend who when she and her DH get their pensions, takes it out of the bank and puts it in separate envelopes- electricity, gas, council tax, food , water, petrol, contingency etc so she knows she has covered everything. She then knows what she has to spend, puts it in her purse and sticks to it. Her husband is given £10 a week pocket money for himself.

I use the same , take out a large amount then split it for the bills, plus if the account is compromised, it could take x time to recover the funds, but the bills still need paying, at least cash in hand is mostly a lot safer.

I use a spreadsheet (just plain old excel) and list every single expense for the month that I can think of. So like having a list of virtual pots.
I update every couple of days so I'm really keeping track of what I'm spending on and how much I actually have to spend, not some imaginary amount. I allow an amount for miscellaneous spending each week (eg buying a coffee, birthday card etc) and I do not dip into the next week's pot early 😂
That way I get to the last week of the month with spending money still (in theory).
I am bad with money, I am a spender and this gives me control over my finances.