Non-cash expenses in cash categories

**annakat** · 02-17-2011, 05:20 PM

Just curious how other people who use an envelope system or other cash-only system handle it when you have an expense in one of your cash categories that you can't pay for with cash. I had to write a check that I hadn't anticipated this week, for example, when the recipient wouldn't take cash (so that there would be a traceable record of payment). I can foresee it coming up with buying online, too.

Seems like the ideal thing would be to plan in advance and take out less cash to begin with, but if you haven't done that, what do you do? What I ended up doing was creating a new "bank oweback" envelope and moving the amount of the check from the Household Miscellaneous envelope to Bank Oweback. I wrote the amount and where it came from on the envelope. Next paycheck, I plan to withdraw that much less money, and then I will move the cash back to the original envelope to make up the full amount.

**Mom2-3** · 02-17-2011, 06:30 PM

This is the exact reason I do virtual envelopes. I only keep cash for groceries. Everything else is held in the checking account and I created an excel spreadsheet for the "envelopes"

This is what works for us.

**annakat** · 02-17-2011, 08:07 PM

That's the method I used for years, until recently. Now that I need to get a bit stricter with my budget due to reduced income, it wasn't working for me for two reasons. I'd go too long without updating the records, which led to either overspending or not being able to remember whether the Walmart debit (that I'd long since lost the receipt for) was for clothes, groceries, or something for the house. Also, it was too easy for me to overspend in one area because the other areas balanced it out...I felt like as long as the total balance wasn't overdrawn, I must have enough money. It did all balance out, but I would have been better off keeping to the budget in the overspent areas and putting the money in the underspent areas to debt/savings. It's a good plan, but for me right now it's not going to work.

**Greebo** · 02-17-2011, 09:52 PM

We have a "reimbursement" envelope. When we make a debit card payment for what's usually from an envelope we take cash from the envelope and put it in reimbursements.

Next month when we pull cash for the envelopes, it comes from reimbursements first.

**zakity** · 02-17-2011, 11:02 PM

I use a virtual envelopes system. When I get home, I record all the receipts.

**mateosbaby** · 02-18-2011, 12:17 AM

I also have virtual envelopes with an Excel spreadsheet system. I require hubby and myself to get a receipt for everything (and anything we can't, we write down immediately). I have a small basket on my desk where all receipts go, and I enter them several times a week. Or at least as often as the basket gets a couple in there.