Financial Fitness

Certain commercials will have you believe that plastic makes the world go round.  Pull out cash in a grocery store and the other shoppers will roll their eyes as the checker struggles to finish your transaction, right?  Wrong.

Research shows that spending cash actually triggers pain receptors in your brain, while sliding plastic (even a debit card) doesn't.  Which is probably why you spend an average of 17% more when you use plastic! 

If you are new to budgeting or you've always had trouble living on a budget, start by moving to cash envelopes for a few discretionary spending categories -- groceries and "spending money" would be a great start. 

When income arrives in your account, write down where it's going and take the budgeted amount for each of those categories out in cash.  Use bank envelopes to separate the cash and then spend only what's in the envelope for that category!

Envelope budgeting is a great way to stick to your budget.  Give it a shot.  If you don't like it, you can always go back!