envelope system

i would like to go into more detail about our envelope system. i like to share our envelope experiance because it has probably been the best decision we have made concerning our finances. it really jump started a series of good decisions. last year our church offered the dave ramsey financial peace university course. i had heard of the envelope system before and we had tried it in the past. but this course really got us motivated again. of course we have played around with it and tweaked it to fit what works for our family.
basically the way it works for us is each payday we calculate our bills and gas we have to pay out of that check and thats the amount we put in our checking. everything else is cash and seperated into envelopes. some of our envelopes include, doctor, kids, church, camping, birthdays, christmas, food, pets, home, school, savings, car, date, adoption, and misc. some of these can encompass quite a few items. for instance the kids envelope can include clothes or shoes or even diapers. doctor envelope is for co pays, medicines, or dentist appointments. birthdays is a great one. it covers their birthday movie, and any special dinner or dessert. the date envelope can include a date night for roger and i or even a family date. we do alot more family dates than date nights :) our pet envelope covers dog food, dog accesories and we also save for any vet visits that might come up. the home envelope has a wide variety of uses. currently we are saving up for a little commuter car for roger in the car envelope but we may also need to use it for any repairs or items like oil for the van. the camping and the christmas envelope are always so fun! those get fed all year long but not spent until its time for those events. so its so rewarding to get to spend that money after saving for so long!
its so comforting to have this money set aside for specific purposes. dave ramsey says to give every dollar a name. this makes so much sense to us. we found out we had so much money being wasted every month because we were not allocating it. now its like we have found money we didnt know was there. i like to say the envelopes are magic, if i believed in magic :)
the envelopes also help us to practice self control. if we do not have any money left in an envelope we dont purchase the item. it teaches us to save. in many cases it teaches us delayed gratification. which is so rare in this day, where we live in a gotta have it now generation.
we are teaching this system to our children as well. especially the delayed gratification. piggy bank money does not get spent until the piggy bank is full. and we are teaching them to divide their money too. some goes into savings, some goes to church and the rest is spent. as they get older they can add more envelopes. like last year the 2 oldest kids had small jobs and had their own christmas envelope.
i know we get asked alot about how we stretch our dollars. i hope this has encouraged someone that is struggliing in this area!