With the costs of gas and food rising so quickly, I have been needing to keep much more careful track of where our money is going.  In our pre-child days (or I should say, in our pre lots of children days), we used only cash and used the envelope system.  Since then, it has just been too hard to keep it all straight with our checks and debit card.  Another difficult thing is Wal Mart and other Super Stores... too many categories were used on the same transaction.  I was looking for a way to do "envelopes" within my checking account.  That way, if we did not spend the whole school amount each month, we could build it up and I could not feel guilty when I needed $500 for school books at the beginning of the year.  Or whatever.

I tried online money programs.  I tried all sorts of things.  Nothing worked, until I found The Budget Map Check Register .  What this does is add categories in your check register to keep track of how much is in each category.  So when I go to Stuff Mart I can easily divide the money spent between the categories... $20 for clothing, $15 for the cars, $100 for food (I should be so lucky to only spend that much for food)... etc.  Check it out!!!  It's wonderful.

Budget Map

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Posted by 4sweetums

Wow! That looks like a great system. Thanks for sharing it. Some days it seems like the only envelopes are going to be food and gas with the rising prices but I hope not.
Blessings,
Dawn

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Posted by http://allyjoserudition.blogspot.com/

What a great idea. I'll have to check this out. The catagory thing at Stuff Mart drives me insane. I like to be meticulous (probably a bad thing because I drive myself and my husband crazy) about where the money is going and it was too much to keep up with at Wal Mart or the drug store when things are on sale. Thank you so much!!! This could really help.

Thanks for the mouth wash tip. I will try it next time I'm bitten, which I hope won't be soon.

Blessing!

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Posted by Anonymous

I do pretty much the same thing, but with an Excel spreadsheet. I use one for my checking account and for our savings account. I had often wondered if there was anything I could carry with me, and here it is! Thanks for sharing.

http://superchikk.blogspot.com

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Posted by Anonymous

Thanks for the suggestion! (I love Works For Me Wednesdays.) We haven't officially done a Dave Ramsey/envelope system yet, but have talked about it. This system you're describing sounds very helpful. I'll share the link with my SIL & BIL who use the envelope system, as well.

Sarah
www.myspace.com/sarahcarol

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