Skip to main content

envelope budgeting

i've always had a hard time saving up for the rainy days. i'm always stuck in the part where i have no idea where the money is going to. and believe me, i hate that part. so i scoured the net to look for ways how to solve this eff-ing problem and googled(i wonder if this verb is already an entry in the dictionary) budgeting. then i thought, why don't i just check its wikipedia entry. unfortunately, all information inside that entry were on a macro-scale of the word itself. and fortunately, except the "see also" part. there lies the phrase envelope system.

although there's just a small info about it, the description how the system works gives enough overview on how it works basically: enough to make me save.
"Typically, the person will write the name and average cost per month of a bill on the front of an envelope. Then, either once a month or when the person gets paid, he or she will put the amount for that bill in cash on the envelope. When the bill is due, the money is taken out to pay for that bill. 
This prevents the person from spending the money out of their pocket or bank account, because it is already allocated to the bill."
But why stop there? the basics will make one save. but knowing the entirety will make wonders. a little more on that matter, later.

Popular

Contextual Stratification - Chapter 21: No Theory of Everything

  The Most Seductive Dream There is a dream that haunts physics, philosophy, and the human imagination itself: one equation. One framework. One truth that explains everything. Einstein spent the last decades of his life searching for it, a unified field theory that would reconcile gravity with electromagnetism, that would show all forces as manifestations of a single underlying reality. He failed, but the dream didn't die. String theory arose promising eleven dimensions and one fundamental entity, vibrating strings from which all particles and forces emerge. Loop quantum gravity offered another path. M-theory suggested a framework encompassing all frameworks. The quest continues. Physicists still seek the Theory of Everything (TOE) the final equation that would subsume quantum mechanics and relativity, explain all particles and forces, predict all phenomena. The dream is powerful because it promises ultimate understanding. No more mysteries. No more competing frameworks. No more b...

Contextual Stratification - Chapter 16: Human Psychology

  The Divided Self Physics stratifies cleanly—quantum here, classical there, clear boundaries. Consciousness stratifies across perspective—neural observable from outside, experiential accessible from inside. But human psychology stratifies within a single person, within a single moment, creating something we all experience but rarely understand: internal conflict . You know you should exercise, but you don't feel like it. You want dessert, even though you're trying to eat healthily. You believe honesty is important, yet you find yourself lying. You're drawn to someone you know is wrong for you. You procrastinate on important work while doing trivial tasks. You hold contradictory beliefs, pursue incompatible goals, feel pulled in opposite directions. Standard psychology treats this as a problem to solve. Cognitive dissonance theory says we're motivated to eliminate contradictions. Rational choice theory says we should maximize consistent utility. Self-control research fr...

Contextual Stratification - Chapter 8: Scales

  The Microscope Analogy Imagine looking at a painting. Stand close, inches from the canvas and you see individual brushstrokes, texture, the physical application of paint. Step back a few feet, and you see the image: a face, a landscape, a composition. Step back further, across the room, and you see how the painting relates to its frame, the wall, the space it occupies. Step back outside the building, and the painting disappears entirely into the larger context of the museum, the city, the culture. Same painting. Different scales of observation. And at each scale, different features become visible while others disappear. The brushstrokes that dominated up close are invisible from across the room. The composition that emerged at medium distance fragments into meaningless marks up close. Neither view is "wrong". They're both accurate descriptions of what's observable at that scale. This is what scale means in contextual stratification: the resolution of observation, th...