Motherhood Movement, Part II

Last week I started sharing my thoughts from an Instagram story I stumbled upon. Here is part II.

 "There is a movement of mothers, feeling pulled back to the forgotten skills of their great-grandmother's generation."
@siloandsage

When we were really little, I remember going to my paternal great-grandmother's house - especially playing games there with my sister. More recent memories with her included visits in her home and celebrating her 100th birthday among family. Those were many years ago now.

The short story is that I don't have too many memories with my great-grandmother that were long lasting BUT I do have MANY, many beautiful memories with my maternal grandmother.

-Surviving tornadoes in her basement and playing Can't Stop.
-Toasted tomato sandwiches. YUM!
-Her teeth popping out when she laughed too hard. This happened quite often.
-Riding Mr. Freeze with her as a teenager - did I mention she was 60+ years older than me???
I seriously could go on and on . . .

There are so many ways that I have looked up to her over the years and I know that many of my ideals I gleaned from her. One of which we'll chat about today.

BUDGETING

Sorry to drop it on you like that, but I struggle with transitions so here we are. Yep, as non-exciting as that sounds, budgeting is one skill that I am thankful that I picked up from her. I still remember her opening her roll-top desk (which my sister still owns) and pulling out her bank ledger to write in her purchases. She knew where each dollar went and had the foresight to save for those rainy days. She put aside money to keep up her home, to fly to wherever we happened to be living at the time, all the while still splurging on things she truly loved.

Karl and I have been budgeting since 2010ish, when we started following Dave Ramsey. In 3 years we paid off over $100K in student loans and personal loans. It was a HUGE achievement and one that most certainly affects my current day to day. We do not regret it one bit.

But, over the years, we've fallen out of our old habits, namely the cash budgeting system. Even though I had been writing out our expenses and "knew" where our money was going, we weren't saving anymore. Just spending it all. And then some.

In November we sat down and reflected on 2021 up until that time as well as what we wanted to work on in 2022, where we felt the Lord leading us and nudging us. Not contributing to our family finances has been frustrating to me BUT we feel the Lord has placed me to be home and invest in our community during this season. I decided that the one way that I can financially contribute is to ensure that we use our finances wisely. So, I began doing what any good enneagram 5 would do and started researching cash budgeting since that worked so well for us in the past.

After many nights of YouTube watching, I arrived at a system that works well for me. I'm sure I will continue to tweak it (in fact, I already have ideas that are not NEEDS so I've held off, but I digress). Now that I've talked your ear off, here is what it looks like for us and how you can start for yourself, too.

1) Create a budget.

Honestly, this is the most time consuming part, especially if you haven't budgeted before. I'd encourage you to write down your expenses for the past month at least, though 2 or 3 will probably be more telling and give you a better average. If you typically buy things with your credit card or debit card, you can print your statements and use different colored highlighters or simply mark things out as you categorize them. The world is your oyster.

Something else to think about is what timeframe you want your budget to last for: the entire month? Each individual paycheck? Your overall goal is to give each dollar a place within your budget.

Once you have your budget know it will change and that is OK! We've had a "budget" since the beginning of our journey and it has morphed and changed a lot since then. Even from month to month it can look different.

Think about regular large expenses, too, like Christmas, birthdays, taxes, etc. and plan those out putting a little aside each month into a sinking fund. That is one nugget that has totally changed our world.

2. Use your budget!

Ha ha, but seriously, you need to create it and then actually use it. It will take some getting used to, but in time you'll create a rhythm. In the past I have tracked ours with excel spreadsheets and always loved that buuuuuuut I have learned that physically writing really is the best for me. Enter our budget book from Erin Condren.

This is a seemingly simple product but I think that's what makes it work. The version that I have this year allows you to customize your areas in your budget but you could even white out the headings and make it even more your own.

Each section has 2 overview pages and 4 ledgers. On the overview pages, I include our entirely monthly budget on the right page and then use the left page as more of an area to check-in throughout the month. For example, we set aside a little over 10% of our budget for food (groceries/restaurant) so I include that information on the right page within the budget. Each week I'll calculate what we spent and determine how much we have left. That information will be written on the left page so I can return to it easily.

On the ledgers, I essentially treat it like a checkbook ledger - you remember when those were a thing???? I write down each transaction (except for bills, those I just mark on the budget overview page as they go out) and then assign it a category in my budget so I can figure out how much I used each week. I use those categories to figure out how much I spent each week and plan the rest of the month accordingly.

One more thing I wanted to note was at the back of the budget book are 8 ledgers (called Debt Trackers) that you can use to focus on paying down debt. You can also use these to keep track of other things such as monthly investments, medical expenses, etc.

3. Cash envelopes.

Ok, like I mentioned before, we used to use these back during our big debt payoff. The idea is not new, but I love this system so much more than the paper envelopes we used to use. I 100% know this is a personality thing, so all that to say if you decide to do a cash system be encouraged to find what works for you.

Currently we have two a5 sized binders that we use for our cash envelopes - one was an old planner and the other I purchased. These are pretty inexpensive as are the plastic envelopes that we use to hold the cash. The labels I made with my cricut.

The idea is that you pull out the cash you'd need to fulfill your budget for the month from your bank. Since everything we do is auto-drafted or paid with our credit card (yep, we love those rewards and miles y'all!), the money in our envelopes is basically recycled month to month. I hope I can explain that well. 

Binder 1 has our most used envelopes for the month - Grocery, Restaurant, BLOW and Gift.

Binder 2 holds our sinking funds as well as our BANK where we put money that has been spent from the other envelopes. Not ALL the money from our sinking funds are found in here. We have a savings account that we put the majority of it all in. In the place of those funds I made simple fake bills to help me see what we have.

Having literal cash in these envelopes makes it more tangible for me and stops me from impulse spending. It's crazy how it works for me. I am not perfect but I definitely feel like we are making strides towards better stewardship with our finances.

How about an example?

The other night we went to Rosas for Taco Tuesday and spent $34.56 - yikes ola! Anywho, when I got home I:

1) Wrote the expense in our budget book, including the category RESTAURANT so I can add them up at the end of the week.

2) I pulled out my binder that has the RESTAURANT cash envelope and pulled the literal $34.56 from it and then moved that money to the BANK envelope. It has been SPENT, I cannot spend it again.

And that's it! At the end of the month we simply reuse our BANK money and then withdraw any additional funds that we need for the following month and start over.

So, back to that first statement, about returning to the forgotten skills of previous generations . . . this is just one of the areas I've felt drawn to. What I've found is that so many of these forgotten skills require me to slow down and focus on the process as opposed to some final result. Don't get me wrong, results are great buuuuuut I've come to believe that the messy in-between is where life really shines.

I really hope this post has been helpful and has not confused anyone. If you have more specific questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.

-C

PS If you'd like to save $10 on your first Erin Condren purchase, you can create an account through this link. Enjoy!

Part III to come.
**Instagram account that started this train of thought -> @siloandsage. I invite you to check her out.