Here we go!

In the last weeks I have gathered jars for our cash budget categories. Between my job teaching, and our recycling tendencies, I had no problem finding jars around the house to repurpose. For fun, I printed out labels with the category name and the amounts. On the right you see the credit card jar, which I put all my credit cards into, but not my debit card, because it just scares me right now to have no emergency safety net. In the back you can see our super huge jelly belly jar which we dump our coins into, and have been doing that for years (I have another one upstairs for when I do laundry). The grocery and supplies jars used to be garlic jars, and I love the smell when I open them. I wonder if the money will soak that smell.

I went to the bank this morning and took out $950 in cash from my account. That was terrifying, but they didn't even blink. They gave me exactly what I wanted just how I wanted it. I don't think I have ever had that much money in my purse. I took it straight home, entered it in WG? and divvyed it up in the jars. As we spend this month, we will need to take the money out of the jar ahead of time, bring back change and receipt. Then, at the end of the month, I will use the receipts to help me track what we spend for our income statement. In our best case scenerio, we will still have money in the jars at the end of the month. We are discussing if we want to carry that money over to the next month, or transfer it to a travel jar. Coins to the coin jar.

So here we go. Wish me luck.

Where's George

Excuse my head shadow in the shot :)

I just want to put out a plug for Where's George. I think it is a really cool idea, and somehow I have only come to it recently. Where's George allows you to enter and track your money. You enter your money on their website, then you mark your bill to tell other people who get it to go to the website and enter it again. If you are lucky, they will tell you where they got it or how they are spending it. But it shows you how far your money went in how many days.

I have been using WG about a year and a half. I was getting out 50 - 100 $1 bills from the bank every month - generally for my vending machine habit or when you have to pool for gifts at work and so forth. I entered, marked, and spent. In that time, I have gotten about 170 hits and entered 1500 bills. I am ranked in the top 100 for my state. I have had some interesting comments. I have had bills with repeated hits. I really enjoy it.

So, now going to cash only, and not just petty cash I am entering the bills in WG. I have a lot larger bills now, because I don't want to take out, enter, stamp or spend $1000 in ones a month. I am excited to have more entries in WG. At the same time, I don't mark up the big bills quite as much as my ones. I have a mystery stamp from stamp-connection.com which I use to mark the 100 and 50s on the back and the 20s and 10s on the front. 5s and 1s I mark all to hell (I also have a "signature"stamp I use on $20 and under). I just am not used to passing large bills like that, and it makes me nervous that they will think they are counterfeit. I've had people question my 1s in the past, and I am nervous enough just carrying and spending those big bills. Maybe I will get more comfortable. Stamp-connection has a lot of cool stamps and I have added to my collection as I have gotten more into it, but if you want to start up cheap, they have a stamp for $4 with free shipping. They have shocking fast shipping. Or, you can always just write on your bills.