Cash envelopes.. does anyone budget this way ? I’ve been doing mine for a while was so far ahead then the septic at my house shit itself and I had to pull everything I’m now struggling to get ahead. I’m wondering if I have too many envelopes and not enough income maybe. How many envelopes do you have ? Thanks
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Rather than cash envelopes I have sub accounts.
In Excel I've worked out main expenses annually and broken each of them down to fortnightly (which is how my salary is paid).
I have sub accounts for fortnightly bills (health insurance, phone/internet goes in here too although it's monthly).
House bills (rates, water, insurance).
Car bills (rego, insurance, services). Personal bills (power, gas, vet). The fortnightly amount needed is transferred over to each account so when the bills fall due most, if not all, of the money is already set aside for it.
Anyone can find themselves floundering when a big ticket item shits itself. The trick is to not let it stop you. Just start over. You started from scratch before and you can do it again. If you're finding the money doesn't stretch to cover the envelopes plus basic living costs it's time to downsize expenses. That could be cutting subscriptions, using energy more efficiently, buying cheaper groceries, or picking up an extra shift or two to bring in more income. The way costs are going at the moment you're probably looking at cutting costs and increasing income. Good luck. Hopefully nothing else goes wrong for a while and you can get started again.
This is how I roll too, and have over 10 years and never spend my pay increases, i now park $2k a month, outside all my expenses and savings. I might not have a luxury car, but i knkw if anything goes wrong i can live for well over 2 years no income
I have separate bank accounts. It’s too much effort to go to the atm etc when you can do it all online.
I have a bank account for spending/play money, a bank account for regular bills such as food, electric, gas, petrol etc and a savings/emergency fund.
It took a little get the emergency money to a reasonable amount as I’m very low income, it’s all set up as auto transfers on payday so I don’t have to remember to do it.
You could divide it into as many accounts as you like (a lot of banks offer this now) it’s really up to you how your mind works best. The more bills accounts you have, the harder it is to get enough in an account to cover a bill. The bills don’t all fall due at the same time, so it kind of works out having them all in the one account.
Are you talking about connected to mains septic or not connected?
Ours is unconnected storm broke it.
It took a bit too get insurance to pay, I did all research and paid upfront but insurance did pay me back.
I squirrel money into other accounts by direct debit. Comes in very handy
I just have a savings account. I would pay/keep out money for bills and put the rest into savings. Build it up, that’s all you can really do. Yeah you’ve taken a hit, large unexpected bills can do that. Just get that sorted and then get back to what you were doing.