Meal Planning With The Cash Envelope System

Did you know one of the quickest ways to get your budget on track is to switch the cash envelope system? It’s true! With a credit card or even a debit card, it’s easy to go over your budget a few dollars here and a few dollars there. And before you know it, you’ve blown your budget for the month out of the water.

However, you can’t go over with cash. Once your cash is gone there is no spending any more (let’s pretend our debit cards and credit cards are left at home, shall we?).

So if you find yourself overspending little by little, then switch to the cash envelope system. If you follow me on Instagram then you may have caught my IG Story at the beginning of the month about how we’re switching back to cash for our groceries (you can find it in my highlights section).

A question I received about using cash for groceries is how to effectively meal plan – because cash is so black and white, so how do ensure you don’t go over each month or buy enough to feed your family. Well in today’s Q&A video I’m answering how meal planning with the cash envelope system is super easy.

You can watch the video online or down below:

Basically, you have to be prepared before ever leaving the house. You need to do a few things each week to make sure you’re on track to afford everything you need for the house and for your meals.

Keep a running grocery list in plain sight. We have ours on our kitchen counter. When you run out of something – food, cleaning, hygiene, whatever, write it on the list. If it’s not on the list then it won’t get bought – that’s my motto.
Take stock of what you need. Go through the house and make sure you have enough shampoo, diapers, cleaning product, detergents, snack foods, canned goods, etc. to last until your next shopping trip.
Inventory what meal items you already have on hand, this will help you create a cost effective meal plan because you can use what you already have.
Meal plan for the next two weeks (if you shop every week then just meal plan for one week at a time). You can use this simple meal plan to help you keep track of meals and items you need for each meal.TIP: Make sure your meals are easy. Don’t try to use complicated recipes or ones with lots of different ingredients. A huge money waster can be when you have to buy expensive spices or ingredients for one dish. That can really eat up your grocery budget. So try sticking to basic recipes (not boring!).
Create a list of everything you need for breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the next meal plan.
Go through what you already have on hand and mark it off your list you created above.
Now add the remaining items to your grocery list. I prefer to re-write my grocery list in order of the store’s layout. I’ve found that it helps keep our grocery bill low because I’m not backtracking and getting distracted.
Finally it’s time to go to the grocery store! Start with any necessary items, like diapers, medicines, etc. and add those to your cart first. After all the necessities are in the cart then you can start with your meal plan items and other snack foods.
Keep your calculator on your phone open (or use a ticker counter like I talked about in the video) and add up every item in the cart. I recommend rounding up to the nearest dollar on each item, i.e. it’s $4.29 so I will enter it as $5 on the calculator. Rounding up will help buffer for any taxes and if you accidentally forget to enter a price.

Remember if you get to the checkout and you’ve gone over your budget, that’s okay. Don’t be afraid to put things back or ask the cashier to remove something for your total. It’s just an easy click of a button to void an item. If you’re new to the cash envelope system – check out this post.