Sunday, August 19, 2007

Doing the math

above, yard sale Quizmo, 10 cents

Cash-only budgets help when you're straddling two pay periods. No overdraft fees--or those interest charges you get when the bank "helpfully" protects you from overdraft by letting you debit $500 beyond zero. (You can opt out of that generous program, you know!)

If we're really stretching, I divide the amount of money by the number of days left. $10 a day seems more concrete.

5 comments:

Elizabeth Sue said...

Your blog is lovely. Stop by my new blog anytime.
God Bless

Anonymous said...

Hi Meredith-
I like the idea of deviding up the actual dollar amount for each day. I think that's something very concrete that would help me know my boundaries better, and would make staying in those boundaries a fun challenge for me. (My competitive side would love something like this!!) Hang in there, payday's coming...and you'll feel rich when it finally gets here, and proud that you made it through these challenging weeks!

Susan

Anonymous said...

Thanks for spreading the warning--that overdraft protection is just plain mean! My husband and I lost $90 in its fees once when we failed to write down one check. Now we are cash only all the time. Great tip!

SAHMmy Says said...

Cash only here as well! Great idea about breaking it up by days! I kept coming up short in the grocery envelope, but started breaking it up by week, with an extra portion for Costco groceries (great value, but a big chunk of $!) Haven't been over budget since. Love your site!

annie said...

Hi - I heard of your blog first from Crystal at Biblical Womanhood but only recently started reading it. What an inspiration, help, and encouragement you are! I have a couple kind of dumb questions about this, though. 1) How does cash only help you from over-drawing? Or just plain being late paying bills? 2) If we don't have over-draft protection then our checks bounce and that's not a good thing, either.

I couldn't find an email for you, so I hope it's ok I left a comment. you can email me at

annie huddleston at gmail dot com

thanks!