Using Cash Envelope Wallets for Budgeting
There are many ways to budget your money, reduce spending, and increase savings.
As you may know, my husband and I are not big “budgeters”, but with a little bit of luck and lots of perseverance we were still able to successfully get ourselves out of credit card debt.
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I’m always looking for new and fun ways to save more money and one of these ways is by using the cash envelope system, made popular by Dave Ramsey, author of Total Money Makeover. To me it doesn’t feel as restrictive as a traditional budget.
Studies show people spend less money when they use cash versus credit card.
I still like using credit cards to earn my cash back, but using cash envelopes helped us reduce our grocery spending by $200 a month!
What is the cash envelope system?
The cash envelope system is a budgeting method where you allocate cash in marked envelopes for different budget categories per pay period.
Most people refill their envelopes on a weekly or monthly schedule, but you can do it based on your own income schedule.
We used the cash envelope system to pay for any expenses that weren’t fixed expenses and automatically paid for by credit card.
Fixed expenses:
Mortgage
Utilities
Insurance
Car Payments
What are the cash envelope categories?
The best cash envelope categories are variable expenses where you want to reduce and control your spending.
Popular Cash Envelope Categories:
Groceries
Entertainment
Shopping
Eating out/Restaurants
Gifts
Miscellaneous Expenses
What happens when a cash envelope runs out of money/you have leftover money?
When you use up all the money in a cash envelope category you can either wait until it gets replenished or “borrow” money from another category.
I don’t recommend doing this on a regular basis. If you have to constantly borrow cash from other envelopes it means you may need to reallocate your funds.
If you have leftover money in your cash envelope (*high five*) you can let the money build up to use when needed or you can take out the extra money to put towards debt or your emergency fund.
If you already built up an emergency fun maybe go crazy and do something fun 🙂
Now that you know what the cash envelope system is and how it works, here are the best cash envelopes and wallets to carry your cash around.
#1 With You Cash Budget Envelopes
Click on the photo to check out the different patterns and designs.
With You cash budget envelopes are a #1 best seller on Amazon.
These reusable plastic cash envelopes come in 12 different designs that are durable and cute.
They even have separate money envelopes for cash and coins, which I haven’t seen before.
>>WITH YOU CASH BUDGET ENVELOPE DESIGNS<<
#2 Laminated Cash Envelope System With Expense Tracker Sheets
These laminated budget envelopes are tear and bend resistant, waterproof and durable.
It comes with 12 unique cash envelope designs, 12 budget sheets, and 30 label stickers.
>>LAMINATED CASH ENVELOPES & BUDGET SHEETS<<
#3 Budget Keeper Cash Envelope System
These budget keeper envelopes come in 2 different designs. The one shown in the picture or in assorted colors.
A zipper pouch and fine tip permanent marker come included.
>>BUDGET KEEPER ENVELOPE SYSTEM<<
#4 Reusable Budget Envelopes -Dave Ramsey Budgeting System
These colorful budget envelopes are reusable and work perfectly with the Dave Ramsey system. It comes with 2 dual ledgers to track individual purchases and for monthly budget tracking.
This company offers a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee, but with all 4 and 5 star reviews there’s a good chance you won’t need to use it.
#5 Cash Envelope System for Budgeting
These colorful cash envelopes are adjustable to store up to 30 bills. Comes with 12 stickers that can be used as divider tabs.
These envelopes are slightly smaller than most cash envelopes and are good if you want a less bulky feel.
>>COLORFUL ADJUSTABLE CASH ENVELOPES<<
#6 Divvy Up Cash System Wallet with 5 Magnetic Cash Envelopes
The Divvy Up cash wallet system has room for 12 cards, 5 cash envelopes, 1 zipper pouch, and 2 extra storage pockets. The best wallet for someone who likes to carry everything with them.
>>DIVVY UP CASH SYSTEM WALLET<<
#7 Nautica All Cash Money Manager Wallet System
Nautica makes this stylish cash wallet system that comes with 11 credit card pockets and 2 slip pockets. It also has RFID blocking capabilities to protect your identity, credit and debit cards from being scanned.
>>NAUTICA CASH WALLET 6 COLOR COMBINATIONS<<
#8 Expanded Horizons RFID Blocking 10 Divider Cash Envelope Wallet System
Expanded Horizons wallet serves as a great budgeting tool and checkbook holder.
It opens up like an accordion, plenty of extra room to carry your cash envelopes making it very convenient to have all your envelopes in one place.
>>EXPANDED HORIZONS EXPANDABLE WALLET<<
#9 All-in-One Cash Envelope Wallet With 12 Budget Envelopes and Budget Sheets
This cash wallet system comes with everything you need. It has 12 cash envelopes, the wallet, 12 budget sheets, and binder note, making it easier to stay organized.
The best part, you know the envelopes fit into the wallet and they already come prepunched for the binder.
>>CASH ENVELOPE AND WALLET BINDER<<
#10 Mundi File Master RFID Blocking Women’s Wallet
More than 24 color and design combinations to choose from.
#11 HISCOW Bifold Long Wallet
This Italian made wallet comes with a gift box and tags. Has a simpler, sleek look compared to the
#12 Women’s Stylish Leather Wristlet
This wristlet fits your phone, cash and cards. It also has a removable wristlet strap.
They are stylish, functional and come in trendy colors.
>>CHECK OUT EURLOVE WRISTLET COLOR OPTIONS<<
#13 YALUXE Women’s RFID Blocking Security Double Zipper Large Smartphone Wristlet Leather Wallet
These affordable cash envelope wallets are not only durable, but they’re very stylish too.
Who knew you could look cute budgeting?
Create your budget, fill your envelopes and start saving. It can take some trial and error to figure out if you need to increase or reduce your budget amounts, but once you get it figured out it’s smooth sailing!
Pin for later 🙂
Love this! Actually going to show this to my teenage boys – this is how I was taught to budget my money by my grandma and want them to see that others use this too!
That is so great! I wish my parents taught me more about budgeting and different ways to do it. Your boys will really have that head start, great job!!
These are super cool! I am someone who loves to save and hide away money and this is the perfect idea!
Whatever it takes to save money in my opinion lol
My mother had a system like this when I was growing up. Thank you for the post.
Everything is so technology based that you don’t see many people do this, but it works!
I had no idea there were so many cute options out there! I wish Vera Bradley would come out with one…then, I might use the system! 😉
LOL! Budgeting isn’t always fun so making it look cute definitely helps.
When I was younger I used the cash envelope system and it worked out great for my budgeting. Today, with most things online, I’ve come up with a system that works for us, using the computer. Great info and thanks for sharing
I enjoy having everything in one place online too. Once we effectively reduced some of our cash spending I was able to switch some of it back over to credit card so we could earn our cash back points.
I use to use this system of budgeting, those are super stylish!
I wish I started using the cash envelope system earlier in our debt free journey, but they still help us track our cash spending for certain categories very easy.
I definitely pinned this for later. Great article!
thanks! People think cash envelopes is so old school, but it works and is a fun and effective way to budget.
These are great! I haven’t used the envelope system to budget, but sometimes I wonder if I should! I spend way to much money on convenience food!
I enjoy using my credit cards to earn points, but we had a hard time reducing our grocery bill as our kids get bigger and eat more. Using cash envelopes made us more aware of our spending and effectively reduce our bill by $200. I suggest trying the cash envelope system with the categories you need to reduce the most.
Very cute!
This is a good idea this way you know right where your money needs to go.should make it easier not to spend bill money.
I so love this! My son has been telling me about this system. I had no idea there were cute envelopes to go along with it!😊
We use cash to pay for our oil changes and a few other expenses and get better deals because of it. I agree, the envelopes make it so much more fun lol
Cash is king in this household 🙂 CC are so easy to just swipe & forget. Great tips for those looking for another option!!
I agree, we’ve scored some great deals using cash!
Such beautiful wallets! Thank you for sharing!
Oh, I love reading about budget ideas. We’ve been “budget peeps” for over two decades and have tried a few methods. We did the envelope method earlier in our marriage and it worked for a period of time.
I agree. Different times require different forms of budgeting. We still have a very loose budget but the cash envelope system significantly helped with our food budget.
Great ideas for budgeting strategies. I use cash a lot but fail when it comes to budgeting where goes. I absolutely love #13 wallet! Thanks for sharing.
thank you 🙂
Wow, you’ve had a lot of savings in groceries. That’s inspiring! I really love the colorful wallets. I like have pretty things. And I love the pink wrist wallet!
Yes our food budget has always been an issue even after paying off our debt so I wanted to try something different and it worked!
We did this during leaner times. Great tips!
I always say I’m going to try one of these, but I haven’t yet. I’ll have to look into your suggestions further.
I only use it for our food budget because it was the one I needed the most help cutting back on. It teaches you to be more cognizant of your spending.
Soooooooo many choices!!!!! I use this method and am starting to include my older kids in my budgeting process. I’ve just used my printer to put colorful designs on regular #10 envelopes. But I can see that one of the “wallet” type products would save me time. I just never knew they were out there. Thanks!
I love that you’re teaching your kids about the envelope system. I never learned about budgeting when I was younger. Great job!
I love this idea, but I hate having cash or carrying cash around, so it’s never worked well for me. I definitely know some people who could use this though!
Yea cash has been turning into a thing of the past with all the cashback benefits. I use cash mainly for groceries and a few small expenses and it has helped reduced my spending tremendously.
This is awesome because my best friend does this. Her envelopes are not as cute as yours, but she swears by her envelope system. I told her to have more self control but I’m definitely going to have to share this article with her! I love it!
The cuteness definitely helps lol
I didn’t know envelopes like this existed! Pretty, durable envelopes! I love it! I think I may get the cheapest ones and get better quality ones as my budget improves. 😉 I’m gonna have to pin this post!
That’s a great idea. No point spending more money than necessary when it can be better used somewhere else.