Dave Ramsey-inspired Fabric Envelope System

I’d been familiar with Dave Ramsey’s message of debt elimination for a while, but only recently finished reading The Total Money Makeover.  I’m glad I did, because while I don’t agree with Dave on everything, and I think some of his advice can be a bit oversimplified (not every shoe fits every person, after all), fundamentally his message really resonated with me.  In the past year, my husband and I have paid off debt roughly equivalent to my pre-baby gross annual income.  There were times when it wasn’t particularly fun, but it is darn satisfying. 

One thing that has helped us to really control and monitor our spending has been the envelope system that Dave recommends.  For those unfamiliar, you use an envelope and fill it with just the cash you’ve budgeted for that particular category.  When the money’s gone, it’s gone.

I didn’t order envelopes online because I thought it was pretty silly to spend money on something that was supposed to be helping us not spend money, and besides, I thought paper envelopes would fall apart much too quickly. 

Enter the famous stitch #11 again.  At the time, I was so excited to try the envelopes idea that I literally pulled assorted fabrics out of my scrap baskets and set to work.  No fuss, nothing.  I just finished and assembled them using my straight/zig-zag stitch and wrote the category names with a permanent ink pen.  I’ve been so pleased with them.  They’ve held up great, even after being folded up in my husband’s back pocket and shoved in the diaper bag more times than I could count.  All together I think I got all the envelopes done in about 45 minutes, and since I used supplies I had on hand, didn’t cost me anything additional.  

What do you think?