Frugal Friday, but Fun: Living with Cash

When I was young, my parents and grandparents only bought something if they could afford to pay for it with cash. Being able to buy what we want when we want it, has largely been a privilege of Generations X and Y but unfortunately this has seen far too many of us rely very heavily on the magic of credit.

Breaking the credit card spell by moving to a cash only system can be difficult if you are used to handing over plastic to pay for everything but I have found that it teaches you to think carefully about each purchase that you make. If I only take $100 to do my grocery shopping then that is all I have to spend so I have to be careful in my selections and keep track of what I have spent to avoid embarrassment at the checkout. I carry a notebook and pen in my handbag so that I can jot down a quick estimation of what I have spent as I move through the supermarket aisles. You could use a calculator for the same purpose but I have a toddler and it is way to tempting for her not to push the buttons and erase everything as we go, or you could keep track ‘in your head’ but I have a toddler and find it hard to keep track of any train of thought for longer than about thirty seconds before I am interrupted!

You need to plan in order to make available funds last for the entire pay period which can be particularly challenging if you are paid monthly. Whether you keep it in envelopes or jars or sections of your purse, allocate cash  to each area of spending for your household – groceries, fuel, public transport, dry cleaning, etc – and once it’s spent that is it. You’ll quickly learn to make it stretch or face cooking meals from whatever is left in the fridge and pantry.

We have found that we plan more and spend less, and stress less about the credit card bills as the balance owing has stopped increasing. We still have a card as as a back up but have reduced the limit and rolled the balance over to a no-interest for 6 months card. I love the reduced stress of living with cash and believe it or not, it has inspired my creativity in many ways, including some fun, recycling based toys for Immy.

Living with cash
So the credit cards are banned but what is with every store now having to have a customer loyalty card!

And now for some frugal fun for this weekend. For an inexpensive excursion, the kids will love …

  • Catch a bus
  • Ride a train
  • Cruise around on a ferry
  • Take a hike through a national park
  • Go swimming at your local pool (Immy loves the indoor pool we live near)
  • Look in your local paper for free community events
  • Visit a playground that you have never been to before
  • Make and fly kites
  • Visit a local growers market, giving the kids a coin each to spend
  • Visit a museum or art gallery, many now have special sections suitable for younger children

Next week’s Friday Frugal: Becoming a smarter shopper

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3 Comments

  1. This is such an awesome post with lots of helpful information. My kids don't understand the concept of money…they think it grows on trees. So that section was very informative for me. We stopped using credit cards for the same reason….we went to a cash system for awhile but stopped that because it just didn't seem to work for us. Now we only use our debit cards but we allot so much money for each thing, like gas, groceries, etc. As soon as I pay the monthly bills, I put a portion of our money into a savings account and the rest is money to be spent on things we need throughout the month. It's worked pretty well for us so far!

  2. Hi Christie

    Most of our activities are frugal. We spend a lot of time in parks, having picnics, going to the beach and having playdates. For us, these are the type of things that we enjoy doing, it's a bonus that they are inexpensive. Although living off one wage does mean that we do have to be very aware of our expenditure. We do budget and make sure that we stick to our set budget.

  3. PlanningQueen says:

    I still use a credit card for almost all our purchases and we pay it off in full each month. But so we can monitor what we are spending we also use a tracking spreadsheet that we enter all non budgeted expenditure into. Just knowing I have to account for the purchase makes me think twice about it, as we aim to keep to our budget. It does require discipline and may not be for every one, but it works for us. 🙂

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