Keeping a food budget and paying with cash prevent me from buying those extra little things that I see at the store that I don't really need but feel tempted to buy. When I started paying cash I had to keep a calculator in my purse. My method is this:
-Say I have $300 to spend cash on groceries.
-I subtract the amount the tax percentage would be from the $300. Most calculators even come with a % button nowadays. If you are like me and need step by step instructions when it comes to math, here ya go.
-Type in 300.
-Then hit the - (minus) button.
-Then hit 6 (or whatever your tax percentage is in your state, ours happens to be 6. But if yours has a half in it you would put 6.5 or whatever your amount is. If you aren't sure what it is look on one of your old grocery receipts).
-Then hit the % button. It will give you an amount showing what the % amount is of 300.
-But now hit the = button and you get the amount you can spend on groceries with your cash which will provide plenty of leftover cash for your tax.
The only time this is a problem is when I'm ordering groceries online. Can't pay cash that way. So, I carefully go through and place my grocery order online and then I subtract that total from my total grocery budget and whatever is leftover I take in cash to the stores that I visit in person. I apply the tax subtraction above and into the stores I go.
We use the Dave Ramsey method of finances in case anyone is interested. I'm often asked about the program, the books, and budgeting tools. In case you've wondered too....
-The conferences/CDs/DVDs are the same material that is in the books but he is very motivational at the conferences which the CDs and DVDs are made from.
-No, I have not been to the conference. I have the books and the CD set. I've seen 2 of the DVDs from the DVD set but don't own them.
-When it comes to the books (I've read them both) and they are Financial Peace and Total Money Makeover. Total Money Makeover is basically the newest version of Financial Peace. They have the same content for the most part so if you have a choice read Total Money Makeover. Most libraries have them if you want to check them out instead of making a purchase.
-If you purchase the CDs or DVDs you can legally make copies for family.
-You can get some of the worksheets that are in the back of the books or that you get at conference on his website free to download. Click here to download them. We use the Monthly Cash Flow worksheet every month. Yes, we print and fill one out every month! It's a working budget that fluctuates so it's not the type of budget most of us think of when we think "budget".
Anyone else have tips about keeping a food budget or paying with cash?
3 comments:
We have not switched to the cash envelopes.
Do you ever get to the last week of the month and find that you only have a very limited amount of grocery money left? Do you shift money around at that point? Or do you just scale back on your list and make it work?
Here's another scenario which gets tricky for our situation... some months we may only spend $200 in gasoline, then another month Jake will get called to work several USMC funerals and the gas expenses will double. (Not usually something we can plan ahead for at the beginning of the month.)
Thoughts?
Hi Jessica,
Well, I have a couple of thoughts but to answer your first question, YES, both. I do scale back at the end and I do sometimes steal from another envelope. While I know Dave disapproves of that practice I do think it is necessary at times. The idea though is to every month on your Monthly Cash Flow sheet fill out your actuals so that you can adjust your budget accordingly for the next month. I have also learned that it is wise to plan on leaving myself about $50 after my grocery shopping for unexpected grocery needs towards the end of that pay period/month.
As far as the gas envelope goes, that one is the trickiest to figure out. That is the one category that we have always padded quite well. That way if there is anything leftover it builds up for a time when our gas needs might be larger. The whole point of the envelopes is that if you don't use some of it then it's there building up for the next month when maybe your needs are greater.
I will tell you one little secret that we do differently with our gas fund. We prefer to pay with a debit card for our gas especially since we buy it at Costco most of the time and can't pay cash for it there. So, we keep our gas recipes and put them in our "gas envelope" so that when we have our monthly finance meeting we can total up what we spent and list it under the actuals and see how close we are to our budgeted amount. The gas money just stays in our regular checking account and since it's padded a little it also would build up some which meant there was also a good amount of money in checking anytime we had something come up that we weren't budgeted for and we would use that first before getting into our emergency fund.
I hope this was helpful. Let me know if I explained myself well enough or if you have more questions.
Yes, you explained yourself well, thank you. I'll let you know if I think of any other questions.
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