Used to swear by cash envelopes for groceries, but switching to a dedicated debit card saved me $40 a month in overdraft fees.

It took my bank hitting me with one too many $12 fees to realize that automatic tracking beats my messy envelope system, and now I actually see where every dollar goes instead of guessing, has anyone else switched from cash to digital and noticed a difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_hayes9d agoTop Commenter

My first month with a digital envelope system I actually had the opposite problem though, I spent way more because I kept forgetting I had already allocated that money to something else. Like I'd see $300 in my checking and think "cool new shoes" without remembering $200 of that was already spoken for. Do you use a separate account or just track it all in one place? Because I tried the single account method with categories and ended up confusing myself constantly.

faitha408d agoMost Upvoted

Girl I did the same thing my first month, ended up $150 over on "fun money" I already spent twice in my head. Switching to separate accounts for each category saved my budget big time.