Changed my whole mind about budgeting after talking to my barista

I was grabbing coffee at the shop on 5th street last Tuesday and this older guy named Joe was behind me in line. He saw me wince at my card balance and just said "man, you gotta give every dollar a job before the month starts or they'll all go find jobs you don't want them to have." It hit me so hard I sat down and let him walk me through his little notebook system right there for like 15 minutes. Has anyone else had a random stranger give better advice than any finance YouTuber?

3 comments

3 Comments

seth_singh201mo ago

Man I had something almost exactly like this happen. This lady named Carol at my laundromat saw me stressing over my phone bills and she just pulled out this crumpled envelope system where she literally had cash sorted into categories like "electric" and "fun money" and she was using a pen to mark stuff down. I started doing that same thing with just a notebook and it changed everything. Now every paycheck I write down exactly what each dollar is doing before I even see it in my account. No more wondering where my money went by the 15th.

miles_burns1mo ago

Wait, not to nitpick, but writing it down before you see it is a great start, it's really more about tracking it after it's gone too (if that makes sense). The envelope system Carol showed you works because once the cash is gone, it's gone, you can't overspend. I do something similar with a notebook but I also check my receipts against it every week, just to make sure the numbers match up.

luna_wright1mo ago

@miles_burns makes a solid point about tracking after the fact too. Joe's notebook thing worked for me but I realized I was still guessing what I actually spent by the end of the month. So I started doing what another user mentioned here - I write down my plan at the start, then every Sunday I go through my receipts and bank app and mark what actually happened in the same notebook. The mismatch is way smaller now and I catch overspending on dumb stuff like snacks within a few days instead of waiting till my card gets declined. That weekly check-in really locks in the whole system because you see where you lied to yourself about what that dollar was actually doing.