What if I told you that a small change in how you manage your money could leave you in a better financial position than 99% of the people you know well?
In this post, I’m going to share with you how to save money faster by employing the envelope method.
What is the envelope method?
Simply put, the envelope method is a way to figure out how much money you have in each month’s budget category by putting your money into envelopes.
Then, at the end of the month, you can take a quick look at your envelope to see how much money is left. Sounds simple enough, right?
Before I tell you the exact ways to use the envelope method in your life, let me first tell you who should use this technique and how it works for many people.
Why is it so effective that saving money can be difficult?
While most know that saving money, whether for a major purchase or retirement, is important, millions of people in America still find themselves with little or no savings due to poor financial management skills.
To solve this problem, spending money has never been easier because, with one type of credit card, you can spend your entire salary in the blink of an eye. So if you are someone who is a shopaholic and constantly finds yourself overspending, this method is for you.
Why is this method so effective?
Briefly, this approach involves three main aspects: budgeting, tracking, and restriction. Well, maybe you’re nervous just thinking about the budget. This aspect of the procedure is the key to saving you more money than ever before. You see, most people find themselves overspending.
Because they have no real plan for how they’re going to spend their money, they just see what they want, tap their credit card, and go about their lives. In both the budgeting and tracking phases of the envelope method, you’ll have a plan when you start your month.
Then there is the tracking. As soon as you start spending the allocated amount for each envelope, you will naturally start to see how fast your money is finally being spent.
As you know, with a credit card, the spending potential is almost endless. However, with the envelope method, once your envelope runs out of cash, that’s it for the month. So, by limiting your spending, you will definitely start seeing your savings grow.
Now that you know why you should use the envelope method,
Let’s walk through these four steps that will help you save more money than ever before.
Step #1: Create Budget Categories
After you’ve got your hands on some envelopes, what you’ll want to do is identify all of the categories of items you buy each month, and this is especially important for those expense categories where you’re always on each envelope. Seem to spend more, write the name. Some common category groups include grocery, gas, rental, clothing, and entertainment.
To determine which categories you’ll need, I’ve found it helpful to review my last month’s credit card statement and combined purchases for my envelopes.
Step #2: Determine your Budget Amounts
The first step in assigning your budget amount is to determine how much you earn after taxes each month. This number is often easiest to find on your pay stub or as a deposit in your checking account. If you get paid twice a month, multiply this amount by two.
For example, once you have your monthly after-tax income, your annual goal this year is to earn $5,000. Every month, you will need to stash away about four hundred and twenty dollars. Once you know how much you want to save, you can determine how much to allocate to your envelopes.
For example, if you earn $3,000 after taxes and want to save $400, that means you can split $2600 between your budget categories.
How much should you put in each envelope?
This is where you will go back to your credit card statements and calculate how much money you have spent on each budget category every month.
Step #3: Fill your Cash Envelopes
At this point, you’ll know exactly how much you earn after taxes each month, how much you want to save, and how much you’ll put in each of your envelopes.
The next step is to collect your cash, go to your bank, and withdraw the money you’ve allocated to all of your envelopes. Once you’ve saved your cash, fill each of your envelopes with the amount you allocated for it in step two.
Step #4: Spend According to your Envelopes
While the last few steps set you up for saving success, step number four is the most important in your efforts to save money fast. The key to the envelope method is to only spend what you’ve allocated to each budget category, meaning that once the cash is gone, your spending stops.
Where people make the mistake is that they cover their expenses by charging their credit cards, which is how they get into money problems in the first place. Go to, your item amount exceeds your envelope. Pause, you must decide which items should go back on the shelf.
Once you start implementing this money-saving strategy, you’ll start to find that your wallet will get thinner and thinner as you start shopping. This will make you more conscious about how you spend your money.
You may even find yourself not spending all of your budgeted money on more discretionary categories like clothing and entertainment.