October’s Envelope System Almost Happened
One of my favorite lyrics from a band called “Model Engine” are from a song called “Scarred but Smarter”
If its all true
the only time you fail is the last time you try
if I concede defeat will I
be complete in this failure
am I incomplete and a complete failure
As the of the song indicates the ‘failure’ was a lesson learned. As the title of this post indicates we didn’t quite get our envelope system off the ground. The failure to complete the process fell completely on my shoulders. I simply didn’t push through my busy schedule and get things set up like they should have been. This post contains some lessons learned from my failure so that I don’t do it again and so that you don’t have to go what I went through should you choose to adopt the envelope system for your own household.
Banks Limit ATM Withdrawals - Part of why I didn’t complete my envelope system was the realization that I couldn’t withdraw as much from the ATM as I had planned and therefore my scheduled envelope stuffing wasn’t going to work, but I didn’t take time out from being busy to step into a branch and withdraw the amount we needed to fulfill this role. There is very little work that can be done from the envelopes if the envelopes are empty.
Almost isn’t good if you’re on the receiving end of a handgrenade or a horseshoe - Almost going to the bank and almost withdrawing the cash almost worked. If you’re on the receiving end of failure then being so close to safety (the envelope system) isn’t going to help you. You want to have completed the system setup rather than have bombed out of the system by blowing it.
Debit Cards can at least Track Spending, sort of - The upside of this is that we still came really close with groceries and we can track things using our debit card. It didn’t work like the envelope system but it did at least show us where we blew it. I could have started in after the beginning of the month and used the recorded expenditures to help me pick up from the post-first starting point.
I’m a Lazy Bum - I am not lazy in some areas, but for some reason this simple task of going to the bank and into the bank and getting the money out put my brain into a delayed shift where I could come up with any number of things to do before getting the money out. I could have gone to the bank on the way to another errand. I could have withdrawn money several days in a row after my banks regular hours to achieve the same amount withdrawn. Other options existed by I was simply lazy.
So, now November will be the first envelope system and we’ll get it done because I’m determined to not let this be the last time I try.  Failure is not an option.
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