[GirlBoyGirl]

I currently pay all my bills online. It saves stamps, envelopes, checks, trees, and time! But I want to do an envelope system so what can I do? Leave a specific amount of money in the bank and take the rest out? I definitely want to be credit card and debit card free when I am out and about. Because I can go overboard if I have the debit card in hand! I know I have XX amount of money so why not buy this one more thing?! But if I have cash then I don't like to see it go. But I do still carry my gas card because I can't leave the car with the kids in it to go pay. So do you think I can do envelopes for everyday spending but still pay my bills online? What should I do? Thanks!

 

[Eskielover]

I pay bills online also, but use the envelopes for certain categories. Currently I use envelopes/cash for groceries, gifts, eating out, gasoline, hair care, blow money, lawn care (I pay someone to mow it) and a miscellaneous envelope for ink jet cartridges, stamps, etc. Sometimes I use a debit card instead for gasoline, but mostly use cash.

Eskielover
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[benosayi]

I pay my bills online too. I have a grocery, salon(daughter)gas, cloths and blow envelope. I just fill envelops on the first saturday of the month. Any money left goes into a vacation envelope

 

[Greebo]

When you pay online, make your "envelope" an excel spreadsheet or even a piece of notepaper. Write down how much you have in that "envelope" and when you take money out or put money in, write that down too.

 

[Greebo]

Also, some of those online bill pay envelopes aren't exactly negotiable. You may budget $100 for gas and electric, but if the bill is $110, you need to pay $110 - and then you need to take $10 from something else.

In cases like that, when we pay for something online that goes out of bounds, we either deduct from some other category on paper OR we take cash from a cash envelope and we put it in our "reimbursement" envelope. The next month, when we fill our envelopes, we use "reimbursement" first - so if we need $500 to fill our envelopes and have $50 in reimbursement we only take out $450 in cash from the bank.

 

[craftypam]

My dh is self employed and I deduct taxes out of our checking account so they are not spent and then add them back when they need to be paid.

 

[zakity]

I use an electronic envelope system. It is on a spreadsheet in Excel.

 

[GirlBoyGirl]

Thanks everyone!