About
Hi, my name is Dustin. I’m the founder of EnvelopeBudget.com.
14 Years ago I got married. My wife and I were debt free… until we went out our honeymoon to Mexico and put the trip on a credit card. When we got home, the engine in my 13-year-old car blew up!
So we got our first car payment. A year later we built a house and got a mortgage. A year after that we had our first child. Of course, we “needed” a new car with the latest security standard to protect our new baby.
Frankly we were out of control. We sold the car for a huge loss because we couldn’t afford the payments. We lived with one car for a while until my mom donated one to us. We refinanced our mortgage to try to get our payments down. I read lots of books and got a lot of advice on money. The debt and stress kept building.
Then one day I was driving with my friend and he had Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University audio CD’s sitting on the floor of his car. My curiosity was piqued.
I borrowed those CDs and listed to them dozens of times. They changed my life! He debunked so many “debt myths” I had heard most of my life. His teachings made total sense and really resonated with me.
I made a choice to jump in with both feet. I did everything he taught. I stopped borrowing money.
One of the lessons was all about budgeting. I modeled our budget after this lesson.
We tried the cash envelope system. Frankly it sucked.
- I hated going to the bank or ATM to pull out cash every two weeks.
- Paying with cash and getting change was a slower process, especially in self-checkout lanes.
- Cash can only be in one place at a time. If my wife had the grocery envelope, it was a problem when she called and asked me to pick up an onion she needed for dinner on my way home from work for example.
- I would forget envelopes and find myself using my debit card, essentially breaking my budget until I could deposit the cash to replace it – which honestly never happened. Instead overdraft & fees picked up the slack.
- While studies show that spending cash “hurts” more, it’s not the case with my wife. She readily admits that cash has more of the effect of burning a hole in her pocket.
Luckily I’m a computer genius (I hate to toot my own horn but hey…). I created a virtual envelope budgeting system where I could use my bank and debit cards to emulate the cash based envelope system.
My budget system has helped us pay off our credit cards, pay off our car loans and upgrade our house. We now have 4 kids and one on the way. We haven’t had a car payment in over 6 years. We take vacations now. We are building a new home.
We still make our fair share of stupid money decisions, but at least I know how they are going to affect the big picture and it doesn’t bury us financially.
You could be like I used to be. You could continue living paycheck to paycheck and keep wondering where your money went. You can be shocked year after year when you pay taxes and realize how much money you spent and have no savings to show for it. You can continue to watch your Facebook friends post vacation photos while you are sitting home eating stale pizza and watching rented movies.
Or, you can step up and make the decision to change! You can get on a budget and decide where your money is going to go.
I believe my budgeting software can help you too — whatever your financial goals are:
- Stop living paycheck to paycheck.
- Get out of debt.
- Increase your savings faster.
- Plan for those unexpected expenses.
- Stop having “money fights” with your spouse.
Sign up now for free now. You won’t regret it.