11 Guidelines For Using Cash In Your Budget
11 Guidelines For Using Cash In Your Budget
Written by Sam Getting Finances Done
Here’s how to tell in which categories you should use cash.
1. You Don’t Have To Use Cash For Everything
To reap the benefits of using cash in your budget, you don’t have to go exclusively to cash. Some may choose to go exclusive, but it’s not necessary. Instead, identify which categories will be most effective for using cash using the tips below. You should use cash for categories where either you tend to overspend or where there are a lot of transactions in a month.
Groceries are a main perpetrator of both those criteria which is why I absolutely recommend funding that category with cash. Other problem categories are ones relating to household spending (light bulbs, cleaning products, etc), eating out, personal, and entertainment.
There are actually some categories where it is easier to NOT use cash. Specifically I’ll mention gas for your car. At first Emily and I used cash for gas but found it to be significantly more inconvenient, especially during the winter.
After looking at our gas spending we realized that we don’t tend to overspend on gas. Our gas budget went up and down depending on the price of gas, but we weren’t more likely to drive less by using cash. I still had to commute to and from work no matter what and we don’t take a lot of trips.
Gas purchases also weren’t hard to track in our financial software. We knew that if the transaction was at Texaco it was gas so it didn’t add any confusion at the end of the month. In the end we decided that it wasn’t worth it to use cash and now use a debit card.
Some categories are on the edge and could go either way. For example, haircuts is a category that I think should not be cash, but Emily likes it in cash. From my perspective it’s not hard to track haircut transactions. A transaction at SportsClips is self-evident. There aren’t a lot of haircut transactions. At most I will get one and Emilyi will get one. I’m also not likely to overspend and get haircuts more often if I’m not using cash. For me, this category doesn’t need to be in cash.
For Emily that’s not the case. She is more likely to get a haircut or styling if there’s money available for it. She also will let money accumulate from month to month and then get her hair colored with the extra money. She likes having the money in cash because as it accumulates it gives her permission to do something extra without guilt. Therefore, Emily prefers to have this category in cash.
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