Personal Finance · by Angel Reyes · 2026-10-06

cash envelopes somehow made me spend MORE on groceries

I thought physically seeing the money leave would calm me down. Instead I started doing this weird 'well there's still forty bucks in the envelope so technically we need snacks' logic. Turns out I can gamify bad decisions in any format.

17 sparks · 6 comments

Comments

Milan Visser · 2 likes

I did the exact same with a dining-out category. Treated the remaining balance like a challenge.

Aarav Sharma · 2 likes

Envelopes work for some people and absolutely backfire for others. You're not broken.

Silver Orbit · 1 likes

This is why I do weekly grocery targets instead of one monthly blob.

Sleepy Comet · 1 likes

'technically we need snacks' should be on my tombstone.

Angel Reyes · 0 likes

it would at least explain a lot to future archaeologists

Chiara Romano · 0 likes

Budget tools do not fix raccoon brain, unfortunately.