It appears that I can’t be trusted with a credit card.
At least, not a credit card that gets used for our regular shopping.
Over the past few months, our spending has slipped past our budget by more than I like. The problem appears to be that it’s really easy to toss “just one more thing” in the cart when there’s no hard limit on how much is available to spend at the register.
If you do that a few time, it’s easy to find yourself $1000 over budget.
Ouch.
If it weren’t for my side hustles, we’d have been growing our debt recently.
As of the beginning of this month, our credit card has once again been relegated to automatic bills, the gas station and online purchases.
No more groceries, no more scrapbooking stuff, and no more restaurants.
I would have done this sooner, but we were so far over budget that I didn’t have the cash to yank out all at once to cover our month’s expenses. We ended last month at a good place, so I went for the clean break and withdrew all of our day-to-day spending on the first. When I got home, it went straight into envelopes so we know what we’ve got to spend this month.
Bye-bye, credit cards!
It really is easy to overspend when using plastic. It’s good you’re recognizing it and taking action to fix it!
Do you worry about losing out on credit card perks like miles? I just booked a flight today for $5 to visit my sister across the country. Using my card got me there.
I do, but the perks aren’t worth the uncontrolled spending. I do still have my recurring bills going on the card, like Netflix, the cell phones, and the like, so we’re still building points.
Plastic is great, but if you don’t watch your spending, you can find yourself in trouble! Good call going back to cash!
Way to be disciplined. Good move. You’ll be better off in the long run!
I’ll give you credit for recognizing the problem and taking action. That’s a really good step.
Also, while not the main point of the post, this does speak to the value of side hustles!
Sorry the cc’s didn’t work out but I hope everything stays on track now with cash!
Kudos to you for seeing the problem and taking action. I sometimes find it interesting to hear stories like yours that bring back old memories. My problem now is that I’ve become so frugal (read: tight) that I have a hard time spending any money. My wallet is a black hold for cash. If my wife doesn’t take it out, it rarely gets spent. And, I’ve gotten so used to not buying things that it can take me weeks to buy some things. But, all that in consideration, I still have my splurges, where I’ll go on a binge and spend like crazy. It’s times like that (and like yours) where we have to remind ourselves what our priorities really are, and get ourselves back on track.
Have you considered Smilebox for online scrapbooking…they have a free version.