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If you would have asked someone 15 years ago if they carried cash on them frequently, the answer would have almost certainly been a resounding “yes.” Ask someone that same question today and you might get a drastically different answer. In fact, many people don’t carry any cash with them at all these days, just their credit cards and debit cards. With advances in security and technology, there’s rarely a situation where you absolutely need cash over your cards. With so much of our shopping taking place online now, you may find little use for cash at all. So what’s wrong with the convenience of never needing cash? We’re losing our concept of money - debt on credit cards gets ignored and all we see is what our computer is left in our bank account. It’s making it that much easier to slip into debt and that much harder to get out of it. Here’s some advice for bringing your concept of money back into reality.
Making Your Money Real
- For a full week, try living without your debit card and carrying only cash. On the day you begin your test, go to your bank and pull out how much money you think you’ll need to get by. Others who have tried this test are shocked when they find themselves out of cash by the third day so give yourself some extra room. Remember, it’s been shown in numerous studies and surveys that people who carry cash instead of cards spend around 15%-50% less money than those who only carry cards.
- Try associating how much money you want to save with things you can actually avoid spending money on. An example could be eating out three times a week which costs you $20 each time, if you want to save $80 a month then simply eat out one less time per week.
- Rather than thinking about saving as giving up certain luxuries in your life, try to think of it as making exchanges for a certain period of time. For instance, bring your own coffee to work instead of spending $5 at Starbucks or rent a movie rather than spending $15 at the movie theater.
- Still can’t seem to get a real grasp on the concept of money? Rather than creating your budget on paper or a computer, you may need something a little more literal. Grab some bank envelopes and mark each one as a portion of your budget, so one envelope will be for rent, one for food, utilities, and so on. If you find yourself taking money out of envelopes to pay other ones, you’ll know you have some work to do.
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