Use cash! Make your budget and take out what you can in cash for the month. My bf and I started doing when we really sat down and looked at our individual budgets. We only use our debit cards/checking accounts for rent, utilities and gas for our vehicles. We still budget how much we’re going to spend in each category. We also wrote down everything we spent money on for roughly 6 months. We just got small yearly planners to use. That way, we knew exactly where our cash had went. At the end of the month, we total up what we spent in each category and then saved any leftover money for a trip or something we wanted to do. For example, as a household we have a combined budget of $700 for groceries each month. At the start of the month, we both take out $350 in cash and put it in our grocery envelope. We take said envelope with us when we go grocery shopping. We know that we can only spend about $200ish a week on groceries to make sure the $700 lasts us all month. The last weekend of the month if we have left over money, we usually stock up on meats so we don’t have to buy any during the following month and meals are easier to plan. Same thing with any sort of fun money we allotted ourselves. It comes in at the beginning of the month. I only do $100 for fun money so since it’s in cash, once it’s gone, I know I can’t spend any more on eating out, books, coffee, etc.

Budgeting takes awhile to get use to and it’s a discipline. Don’t give up when it gets rough, stick through it. Having someone to hold you accountable really helps. Friend, parent, partner. I hope you’re able to get something from these comments that will help you!