Yay budgeting!

My husband and I are big Dave Ramsey fans.  If you haven't listened to Dave's radio show or read his books, he is a financial guru who focuses big on getting rid of and avoiding debt.  A big thing he advises is using what he calls "the envelope system," where you budget your monthly expenses and pay for them exclusively with cash, which you store in an envelope.  You have an envelope for each category, like groceries, entertainment, personal purchases, etc.

We tend to do okay with our budget, but when we've tried to use the envelope system it usually kind of falls apart.  I find it to be a little inconvenient to use cash and to have it all sorted out into the exact right amounts all the time, and having to frantically find the right category at the checkout, and I never know what to do with coins, and most of the time we forget to go get cash at the beginning of the month anyway.  But today I came across a variation of the envelope system that I think could work pretty well for us.  I found it on Just Sweet and Simple while I was looking for fun printables, and I'm excited to try it.

Rather than using the envelopes (she has some cute ones you can print and glue together for free, but I ended up designing some of my own) to keep your cash and then dish it out when you're at the store, you use your debit card like a normal person, and then store your receipts in the envelopes and log the purchase on the envelope, like a check register.  Not a particularly ground-breaking system, really, but it's a far cry from swiping the card every time I feel like making a purchase.  Plus, finding a new way to do something tends to make me a lot more excited to do it at all, so all of a sudden budgeting doesn't sound so bad.

A blurry picture of the envelopes I designed

How do you keep track of your budget?

Here we go again.

I don't know how many times I've tried to be a blogger.  It's a lot.  This may become another failed attempt, practically over before it's begun, but lately I've thought a lot about how I'd like to share some of my life adventures, how I'd like to learn alongside other people who are smarter and probably also cooler than me, and how I really enjoy attention and if I get famous from a blog that'd be pretty cool.  So, here I am.  Typing away.  Not sure how to get from this subject to the next one.  Hrm.

What I really want to write about is healthy living and being more conscious of what goes into my body, what chemicals are in my home, what waste I am putting out into the world, and ways I can be a better steward of my life, possessions, health, and money.  That sounds suuuuuuuper boring though, and I don't want anybody, including myself, to think of this like a health and wellness blog or anything like that.  I am not good at being healthy or well, because:

1. I love eating more than enough of carby, sugary, fatty foods.
2. I love sitting and watching shows for hours.
3. I love researching things and then never doing anything about it except filing it away in the part of my brain that houses "fun facts."
4. I love giving up when things are kinda a little hardish.
5. I don't like complicated things that will require trial and error.
6. I hate cleaning stuff and being organized.
7. I like to buy new things that I don't need.
8. I usually believe that things labeled "eco-friendly" or similar are a lie.

And other stuff.

So basically, I'm normal.

This is really a blog about a super normal person fumbling her way to a healthier, more environmentally conscious lifestyle.  Sometimes I fail, like this week when I bought two new pairs of jeans from a store that I know probably makes their clothes in sweat shops.  Whoops.  Sorry, kids in China.  I'd like to say I'll make it up to you, but I probably won't because I don't really know how.

If you're like that too, then read on.  It'll be an adventure, probably.

Mara