 Years ago when paying with a debit card was getting more popular I
decided to go cold turkey on paying with cash. I typically don’t even
carry cash any more unless I am going to the football game. The food
lines come to a grinding halt when someone tries to pay for their beer
with a debit card. Cash was always too easy to “lose” on a weekend.
Cash just has a way of disappearing. I know that some people use the
jar or envelope accounting method and keep their budgeted amounts of
money in cash for their expenses. It just never worked for me. I like
to keep some of my emergency fund as cash, but if I was going to keep
cash around I needed a better way. Let me tell you about what has been
working for me.The reason I brought this up is because nowadays with employment in question it makes sense to keep money set aside for emergencies. I want to make sure that I am not tempted to use that money for anything other than an emergency. I don’t want to invest it or borrow against it; I just want that money there ready to go when the emergency comes up. In order to prevent any temptation to use money that is sitting there doing nothing, I get all of it in $2.00 bills, ordered through my bank, and keep them in a safety deposit box. I am sure this may sound weird, but I am fascinated with $2.00 bills and love to collect them. Whenever I come across one I save it and certainly wouldn’t spend it! You can imagine how I felt when I visited Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and most of the currency used in the gift shop was $2.00 bills! With my emergency fund in lots of $2.00 bills I am not tempted at all to spend any of it! Can you do something similar with your emergency fund? Is there something you can do with your emergency fund that will take the temptation to spend it out of the question? Perhaps you can make it more difficult to get to. I had one friend whose hobby was crafts. She sewed her emergency fund into a quilt. She figured she would not want to tear the beautiful quilt open unless she really needed to. However you do make sure you have money set aside for emergencies and than make sure you safely tuck it away to avoid temptations! For more information visit BowmansMoneyCollege. You are invited to join me at LinkedIn! |