Why Cash Only Weekend Spending ROCKS!

Cash

Image courtesy of Boaz Yiftach / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Hearing colorful language coming from our home office, my wife stormed in to find out what was going on.

I was reconciling our checking account, and even though it had only been a few days since I had last done it, I couldn’t make the numbers come out right. Between Christmas shopping, and being out of town for extended family gatherings quite a few transactions had posted, and I was obviously making a mistake somewhere. The arithmetic error was quickly found and fixed, but in the process I found something that could not be corrected as easily.

We had spent more than we had budgeted over the weekend.

It was surprising because it didn’t feel like we had spent that much. As my wife and I went over our expenditures for the weekend together it all added up. Looking again at the list of posted transactions, we saw several that we could have easily done without. Just for fun, we subtracted those from our total and found that without them we would have been within budget.

“You know what would have made all of this easier?  Taking out cash,” said my wife.

I nodded in agreement, knowing that we are most successful with our weekend spending plan when we do just that. Our official budget system is to:

  • Go over our finances on Thursday night
  • Create our weekend spending plan
  • Withdraw cash for the weekend
  • When the cash is gone, we’re done spending

In the rush to get the gifts and supplies we needed for the weekend, pack and leave town we had gotten lazy, and didn’t withdraw the cash. The end result was overspending. It’s so easy to just swipe the debit card when going to the store with friends or family forgetting about our budget and our spending plan. Had we extracted the cash as we normally done, things likely would have turned out much differently:

  • The cash withdrawal would be one posted transaction to the account, making it much easier to reconcile.
  • Having physical bills in my wallet would remind me with each purchase how much cash is left in our weekend funds.

The checkbook reconciliation would have been less time consuming and less stressful. We also wouldn’t have gone over budget, leaving us more breathing room until the end of the month.

Have you ever tried cash only weekends? Do you think it would work for you?

About Travis

30 Responses to “Why Cash Only Weekend Spending ROCKS!”

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  1. Ugh, I hate that feeling of going through your checkbook and seeing you’ve spent more than budgeted. It’s so easy to do at this time of year too. We’ve done cash only weekends in the past and is always good to see in real time what it’s truly costing you as you hand over that cash. Hope you and the family have a wonderful Christmas Travis!

  2. I used to do something like that but it would be for the whole week. But for some reasons the cash only thing didn’t work for me too well. Plus I like to track everything for tax purposes, so debit or credit was easier.

    • Travis says:

      We don’t do a lot of spending during the week, so we generally try to map out *exactly* what we’re spending during the week during our Sunday night budget discussion. You’re situation is a bit different in having to keep track of things for tax purposes so having official records of each transaction is a good thing. Thanks for reading, Tonya!

  3. My wife and I save each month, beginning in January, to purchase our Christmas presents for that year. This past weekend while we were out shopping (and spending only cash), she looks at me and says, “I can’t describe how much more fun this is knowing we have the money in hand to spend on these gifts.” That was an awesome moment!

    • Travis says:

      Every year we say we’re going to start saving early, Brian….and it’s never happened. I hope 2014 is the year….spending money IS much less stressful when you know you’ve got cash in hand! Thanks for stopping by!

  4. Lord knows I could have benefited from cash only this past weekend! We are headed to Disney this week, on too if it being the holidays. And I am trying to buy things we need for the trip (expensive kid carry on luggage and sandals in the winter!) . I basically spent all of my designated “Disney money” before the trip! **gasp!**

    • Travis says:

      We went to Disney a few years ago, and the exact same thing happened to us! You know you’ve got to be on top of your finances when preparing for the trip costs that much. 🙂 Hope you have a GREAT trip, Serena!

    • Hannah says:

      Tip: Next time just go to a thrift store like Goodwill and buy a cheap backpack or small bag. Last I heard, a carry on bag can be anything within certain dimensions, and there’s no need to buy your kid something expensive!

  5. We are going cash only for entertainment, and possibly groceries too, for 2014. For us, it’s too easy to go over budget when we’re using that cash card. 🙂 Merry Christmas to you guys,Travis!

    • Travis says:

      We don’t always do cash for groceries…but we do make sure we know (within a couple of bucks) how much our grocery bill is going to be before we go into the checkout lane….we always have our calculator keeping a running total of what’s in the cart…but yes, it’s definitely TOO easy to swipe that card! Merry Christmas to you and your family too, Laurie!

  6. As a general rule, I am not that good with cash, but we use a similar system for vacations. We save coins, gift cards, and money from things like selling old stuff at the consignment store and use that for food money when we take a trip. The total saved is divided by number of days and that’s how much we can spend per day. Some days we eat out. Some days we go to the grocery store and get stuff for sandwiches. It really helps to have a per day limit so we aren’t tempted to blow a vacation budget on food.

    • Travis says:

      Staying on budget when on vacation is super hard…and we do the same thing. Whatever amount of money we take with us, we divide by the # of days. That much money goes into my wallet at the beginning of each day. If we don’t spend it all, we have extra for the next day. Thanks for your thoughts, Kim!

  7. After reading your normal process for making sure you don’t overspend on a weekend, all I can say Travis is that you and your wife are my heroes! Your method highlights that it’s really very simple to stick with a budget–all we have to do is want to!

    • Travis says:

      Thanks for the kind words, Kurt! It’s true….keeping your finances on track is definitely a WANT TO…you gotta want it!!! 🙂 It did take us awhile to find a system that works for us, but once we worked through that, it’s simply a matter of execution! Thanks for stopping by!

  8. I love the convenience of my debit card, but do find we can overspend from time to time when using it. We try and use cash whenever possible.

    • Travis says:

      I love the convenience of the swipe as well, Brian…..a little too much. 🙂 My problem is the inconvenience of reconciling my account later – for whatever reason always tends to be a pain in the you know what. Thanks for reading!

  9. Kathy says:

    I started using cash only for.grocery shopping and was stunned at what a difference it made. Mind you, I never went over budget when using credit cards. However, when we both lost our jobs at the same time and we had to redo our budget, using cash was the only way to stay within the 50% slash we had to do for the grocery line item. Even though finances have eased up, I still use cash only for groceries and a few other things. Makes me feel like I am making the money work for me instead of me working for it. Good post! Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and a fabulous 2014.

    • Travis says:

      Having only cash in hand and knowing that you absolutely cannot exceed the bills in your purse/wallet certainly keeps you on task….because how else would you pay for it! 🙂 Great to hear that you are still using the same methodology even if your finances have eased….keep at it! Hope you are enjoying your holiday season as well, Kathy!

  10. I have not tried a cash-only weekend, but it sounds like it would work really well. I actually find it easier to reconcile my transactions by NOT using cash because I have everything broken out by line item on my credit card.

  11. I haven’t tried cash-only weekends but we do use the cash envelope system and love it. Would be down to try this out sometime though.

    • Travis says:

      We used to do the envelope system….but we found that we took the cash out and put it into envelopes for things like Gas, Groceries, Entertainment, etc….but spent everything but Entertainment immediately and were left with just the Entertainment fund. So, now we take out the other amounts in cash don’t bother to put them into an envelope because they just get used right away – gas goes in cars on Friday, Groceries on Saturday, etc. So far so good!

      • Kathy says:

        Oh, I really like that idea of getting gas on a specific day. What do you do with the remaining gas cash? Leave it in the gas fund for a possible future need? Or do you put it in a vacation fund? Or just back into your cash envelope?

        • Travis says:

          I really wish I could say that we did something inspirational with unused gas money….but….the fact of the matter is that the amount we allocate for gas each week is almost spot on to what we use. I typically roll into the gas station with the “low gas” light on. 🙂 If for some reason we end up with extra (it does occasionally happen), it usually is such a small amount it just goes back into the cash/entertainment fund. Great question though…and thanks for commenting!

  12. Sandy says:

    And just think if most of the people who used cards at Target had used cash they wouldn’t be facing potential card fraud right now.

  13. I really need to start some cash only weekends. It’s so easy to swipe here and there without noticing you’re going over budget!

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