Money Envelopes

I suck at budgeting.  We don't live outside of our means, but we also don't save as much as we could.  I've been hearing so much about the Dave Ramsey envelope system that I thought we should give it a try.  First we needed some envelopes, though!  I made a simple 4" x 7" zipped pouch with the labels embroidered on:

We are starting off with these 5 envelopes:

Nikki

Matt

Clothes

Groceries

Fun

I had a hard time writing up the rough budget.  I knew how much fun money we should be spending, but things like groceries were, and are still, a mystery to me.  I want to cut out some of our expenses from eating out, but I'm not concerned with how much we are spending at the grocery store.  I think I've budgeted enough for us to eat well as home plus eat out occasionally.  I think it will be a work in progress, though.

I actually think our personal envelopes will make the biggest difference in our spending.  "Fun" money is meant to be spent when we do things together-either on a date, or as a family.  If we want to do something on our own, that will come out of our individual money.

Groceries will cover eating out as well, but only eating out as a family.  Our solo/work/friend meals will come out of our individual money.

And I haven't decided how the "Clothes" money will be divided.  I'm thinking that money will be used for basics.  And if either of us want something beyond that, we'll have to use our individual money.

Gas money will continue to go on our credit cards.  I don't want to have to take Addy out of the car to pay for gas, and our gas consumption is a pretty small amount of our budget.

As we use the system, I'm sure we'll tweak things a bit.  I may add some categories or combine some.

I also haven't decided how my sewing money should be split up.  I think I'm going to split anything I make, but I haven't quite figured that all out.  Should Matt get part of the profit for his fun money?  Should it go in the bank?

I'm excited to start the system.  And besides, the envelopes are so stinkin' cute! :)

P.S. Sorry about the dark pics lately.  We just upgraded to a dSLR, and I haven't figured it out yet.  It always seems to be too dark or too bright!  (Funny that I mention our camera purchase in a post about budgeting.  LOL!)