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Saw a guy at the Piggly Wiggly in Mobile pay with a paper envelope, and I finally get the cash thing
I was in line behind a man at the Piggly Wiggly on Dauphin Street in Mobile who pulled out a worn envelope marked "groceries" and paid $47 in cash, then put the change right back in it. I always figured cash envelopes were a hassle and that swiping a card gave me better tracking, but watching him do it in like ten seconds made me see how a physical limit beats a mental one. For folks who run envelopes, do you pull the whole month's cash at once or refill weekly?
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tessap9722h ago
What makes you think he's running a monthly envelope system instead of just pulling cash as he goes? I ran envelopes for about two years and the big flaw people skip over is that a card still gets you a paper trail you can go back and check, while cash just vanishes with no record unless you write every receipt down. That ten second moment at the register looks clean, but it hides the fact that he has to plan a trip to the bank and do the math somewhere, and if he's wrong mid month he's stuck. Physical limits only work if your income is steady, and a lot of folks around Mobile don't have that.
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