How Do You Use The Envelope System For Online Purchases?

How Do You Use The Envelope System For Online Purchases?

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[joyous]

I have found the absolute best way I save money on groceries is to meal plan, and then order from grocery pickup. Then you only purchase what is on your list and if you never step in the store, there is no way to impulse buy. It has actually reduced my grocery budget by hundreds of dollars a month.

[Vondo]

Personally when I budget for online shopping, I still put it in the envelope. that way if I want to actually make the purchase I have to physically go to the bank and deposit the cash back so I have the money. This increases the friction of the purchase and makes me less likely to make impulsive decisions

[dragoonslayer]

So glad he mentioned the vacation envelope system. We do the envelope system here at the house and just recently cash funded a five day trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. We had "Gas, Food, Souvenirs, Incidentals, and Mad Money". Incidentals was for parking fees, tips, lockers, etc. The last category was for any activities we wanted to do in addition to the parks. We had a hard plastic coupon organizer (thin) from the dollar tree, labeled it, and kept it in the fanny pack the wife wore. We did everything we wanted to do and came back with zero debt and actually had money left over for our next vacation. Made it very easy to not overspend.

[JaketheJOATGOAT]

Something my family does is we still use the envelope system for online purchases. It prevents us from impulse buying. If we want to buy something online we have to wait a day or two before we can buy it because we have to deposit the cash into the checking account before we order it.

[NefariousJames]

1. withdraw all of your budget money
2. put in envelope categories
3. if you want to make a purchase online, go back to the bank and deposit the money from one of your categories
then you're less likely to buy on impulse :)

[MzBabsie]

I get what she's saying. While Dave is championing for going into stores and using cash, creating friction, we are busy people and need to take the convenient route most days. Without an envelope system for budgeting, we just have to hold ourselves more accountable and log our spending DAILY with apps like Every Dollar or Mobills

[mitchelcooper]

The envelope is just a physical manifestation of the budget. She's not budgeting.

[franilan]

Get a reloadable gift card and put it in the “online shopping” envelope

[danielproulx]

I love the envelope system. I also really enjoy at the end of the month when I still have some money left in the envelopes!! What I do for online purchases, I will use my clothing envelope as an example, I have a $200 monthly budget. If I buy a $80 clothing item on line I pay with my one credit card and next month I replace the $200 cash with only $120 still giving me my $200 clothing allowance and leaving me $80 to pay for the online purchase when the credit card bill comes due. Easy Peasy!

[patphatkitten]

Dave is right. Company i work for knows people spend about 20 % more on - line than when they call the company, so they encourage people to order on the internet.

[GoWadka]

Actual answer:
1. Put about $500 (or more) in a seperate checking account
2. Create an envelope for this account
3. Every time you purchase something electronically, transfer that amount from the category envelope to the checking account envelope
4. When the checking account is low on funds, deposit the money in it's envelope to that account (now It's back to the orignal $500)
5. Repeat Steps 3 and 4


If you pay more electronically than with cash, do this in reverse. I have a bank account for each category and one that is just called wallet. Everytime I pay cash, I transfer the amount from my category account to my wallet account and when my wallet is empty I withdraw the funds in my wallet account.


PS: Please like this comment, if you found it helpful, so others have a higher chance of seeing it.

[KarleySearles]

could buy amazon gift cards with your cash and do it that way

[davycornell]

Me and my wife cash our checks and only leave the amount in the bank that needs to be in there for the bills that are coming out automatically that week. Then put the rest of the CASH in envelopes. Rent, gas, save, etc.

[beccadotelpy]

Dave got kinda snarky with her. I'm not sure he really answered her question because it's kinda of impossible to know how much you're gonna buy online vs. in-store when you're shopping for price month to month. So how would she know what to withdraw?

Depending on how much she shops online, she might be able to open a second account just for online purchases, deposit the average amount she spends in a month and go from there. Not exactly an envelope but...it could work. Of course there's the issue of finding a bank that will allow you to have an account with a low balance without charging a monthly fee or something.

[steveplantz]

I like buying my groceries at Walmart online, I have a list and I stick to the list and I can see how much I am spending for each item I add to the cart. Walmart brings the groceries right out to my car and I do not have step foot in the store I love that, anything that helps not have to go into the store is a good thing.

[elodionocesa]

I pay almost everything online. Rent, insurance, student loans debts, subscriptions. All of this is budgeted and I keep track of what I expect to pay and what I actually pay for digital payments. Then I have envelopes for spending, fuel, groceries. When I spend for one of these categories through digital payment, whether online or in person, I be sure to get a receipt and I put this receipt on a separate envelope that I later replace the receipts with the cash and I deposit that back to my account.

[michaelscottlongo]

I love his principles and his teachings and he seems like a nice man but damn he is sarcastic and condescending. But overall he's here to help and he's been helping millions so thank you Dave. Don't poop on me now 😬😂

[CraigMcDonald]

I once bought a book on vitamins and minerals whilst on the toilet cause I knew I could get it delivered the next day. The day after that I cancelled Amazon Prime cause I knew I had a problem!

[christianfilmer]

Something like a PayPal account or Visa gift card can work well for this. It gives you the ability to make purchases within a specific envelope (i.e, PayPal account balance or gift card balance) without upsetting the balance in your bank account.

[redrubberball]

I'm over a decade older than Dave, so much of my thinking developed during my working years, to manage money. The envelope system is merely a set of pigeonholes in which to store money to "direct" to particular budgetary items. It can be real, literal, or it can exist in a single bank account managed from either a computer program, phone application or from paper and pen/pencil.