As for it hurting less to spend cash, yes, some people are that way. I was that way for a while when used credit cards so exclusively I thought they were money. You get over it. You get over it pretty quick when your money envelope gets low — you can SEE the money run out, and it’s physical, not on some website somewhere. The envelope system gives feedback, and it’s honest, like an honest friend. 

Willpower? You don’t need willpower as much as you need mutual accountability. When you make a fool of yourself in front of your wife, you’ll get the willpower. Sooner or later, bit by bit. “Honey, I blew it again…” Then I mutter to myself: “I am _not_ doing that again!” This process builds willpower muscle as you begin to exert yourself, bit by bit.

The problem I see with a web app for “envelope” spending is that it doesn’t provide feedback until days later when you happen to pull up your account. You have the information but it doesn’t translate to emotion like cash does. And yes, you will have to not buy something every once in a while because you _don’t have the money_. If you don’t have the money, you have to not buy it. At least 85% of Americans, myself included, need that lesson beaten into our heads because that’s the only way we’ll get it! Oh… we’re out of money! Does that mean we don’t get to buy this? Yup…. Getting these lessons — deeply — is more important than the particular progress of your debt snowball and other baby steps. That’s the point everyone seems to miss.

Also, as one elderly woman was quoted as saying by a caller on Dave’s show, there is “No visiting, sharing or hanky-panky between envelopes” allowed. For the budget to work, I would suggest you follow Dave’s guideline (he’s smarter than me) that you consider that you do not ever have the right to change any line in the budget unilaterally, without you and your wife changing the agreement on paper after agreeing. Now that’s hard, but then you’ll be “telling your money where to go, instead of wondering where it went” (Inzolo’s slogan). With a system that lets you swap funds at will you are just fudging. My 2 cents. CDJ in AK

The debit card happens to work for me. I have set up a direct deposit with my employer and I simply transfer money to savings each month. I have developed my own spreadsheet which I review and update daily. I also make sure I know exactly what I have in my accounts before I go shopping. All this requires discipline but so does the envelope system.

Besides budgeting, one thing that has helped me stay debt-free and build savings consistently is setting goals with expiration dates. I pick an important day like my birthday or Christmas day and make a realistic plan to reach my goals by those dates.
Good luck to everyone!

The latter only cost $60 once (no recurring costs) and met 100% of my strict requirements, along with several of my desires. Most importantly, it budgets along the way I was taught, by Dave Ramsey and Crown Ministries.

I’ve been using it for about 2 months and am always grateful for the time savings. I had to cut a special Bash script which removed parenthesis from my bank’s .csv download, but otherwise it rocks.

I went the route of writing a script because I’ve tried every stinkin’ budgeting app I could get my hands on, except Mvelopes which is too expensive ($120/year?? Quicken doesn’t even charge that much, and they try to force you to upgrade every year!). None of them do envelopes like Dave Ramsey taught me, and doing it by hand with spreadsheets was taking far too long.

I’ll give Inzolo a try. I have strict demands (must run on Linux, must do splits, must be able to export all data, etc.) and so far it looks like Inzolo meets them all. Finally!!

Every month on salary day, I withdraw my entire budget and get them changed into the multiple dollars of my choice at the bank. I keep this money at home in a safe and only take out what I need for that day. Say 30 dollars for a day, and I only get to spend that. Works amazingly for me! No extra spending and mindset gets to work on what I can buy or eat for that day. Sometimes I give myself a treat, a 15 dollar meal, or a 5 dollar meal. It totally works.

When my budget is perfectly under control I feel entitled to some convenience.