My Cashless Envelope System

If I ever try to keep up with an exercising regimen, it'll last 3 months max. Why? I'm a lazy person. If I have a goal, but it's entirely inconvenient - that is, gets between me and my couch - there's no chance I will ever reach it.

And that is why I stopped using cash and envelope system. Do I see myself keeping every little receipt from every little purchase I make? How about consistently inputting my purchases into a neat spreadsheet? Nope and nope. Do I see myself regularly going to the bank for cash, separating them into labeled envelopes and placing them into my Louis Vuitton wallet? Ha! I'm not cramping my style.

Bills, Bills, Bills.

I love graphs!

This graph shows my awesome effort at bringing down bills from January to Feb. It looks like this month I should be cutting back even more on all four categories!

dave ramsey; who is this guy?

I'm really into saving money right now, but I'm terrible at it. I've been joining these money challenges in hopes to pay off my student loan as soon as possible, and so far I've failed all of them.

So instead of spending my Sunday afternoon ice skating with my friends, I've been reading other frugal/financial blogs. There's a name that keeps peppering the posts: Dave Ramsey. The first time I ran into Mr. Ramsey, the blogger was encouraging its readers to buy his books. I quickly dismissed it as a scam or a quick buck for the blogger.

But he popped up again. And again. Finally, I clicked on a link to read something he wrote about budgets. And he made me feel better instantly about my recent failed attempts:

Give it three to four months to start working. It won't be perfect the first time you do it.

He reminded me that it's normal to fail. That I should keep going regardless of my seemingly pathetic budgeting attempts. He flipped my lingering guilt around in seconds.

This guy is kinda cool, I thought. So I researched googled him to find an impressive resume; he's written books, hosted a radio show and all that jazz. What confirmed his legibility with me? He was on the Oprah Winfrey Show! 

Slick Budget Spreadsheets

Free budget worksheets are easy to find on google, and they look like they can work...for families. I downloaded half a dozen of them before I accepted the terms that nobody is going to create a budget worksheet that suits my situation:

• This is a single household
• I live in Korea 
• I do not own a home
• I have my housing payed for by work
• I don't have a car, pets, children
• I only want to keep this up for five months

Although they had a plethora of categories to report my expenses into, the vital ones were missing. Not to mention, they are ugly. I don't want to be staring at a worksheet made in the 1990s every single day. 

So I decided to take it upon myself to create a personalized budget workbook through MS Excel.