Warning: The flea market vendor who laughed at my envelope system

Last month at the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena I pulled out my cash envelope to buy a vintage lamp and this vendor actually laughed. He said 'You're the person who still does that?' and then told me I was probably losing track of my grocery money every month. He had a point. I was stuffing $400 in one envelope labeled 'food' and just grabbing whatever I needed without tracking it. After that I started using three separate envelopes for groceries, eating out, and household stuff. Now I write the amount on the outside with a marker and count it every Sunday morning. It sounds silly but I caught myself overspending on takeout by like $80 a month. Has anyone else gotten that kind of blunt feedback from a stranger and actually changed their whole system because of it?

1 comments

1 Comment

harper_smith11d ago

That vendor did you a favor, honestly. Three envelopes is the right move. I used to just have one for everything and called it "cash," which was basically a black hole. Now I use the marker trick too, and it stings every time I see the eating out number. Takeout was eating my lunch money without me noticing. The blunt feedback thing is real, sometimes you need a stranger to call you out.