Works for me Wednesday

This is my 1st edition of Works for Me Wednesday sponsered by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

One thing that works for my husband and I is the envelope system. I first learned about it at here. Here's the steps we take at the first of each month.

-Decide what we're going to spend in our catergories for the whole month. I only pay our bills from our checking account then everything else goes in our envelopes. My categories are

-Gas for Car

-Groceries, Diapers, & Household items

-Eating Out

-Entertainment

-Offering

-Gifts

-School (this covers field trips, lunch, etc for my daughter)

-Convience Store (my husband is addicted to going)

-Emergency

-Then we put the designated amount in each envelope. This means that I have to plan ahead if I want to buy something and I only can spend what I bring to the store which eleminates "extras"

-This has helped my husband and I cut our budget by about $700 a month.