Shoutout to the coffee shop lady who showed me her envelope system

I was stuck in line at a Starbucks in Austin last Tuesday when the woman in front of me pulled out cash from labeled envelopes to pay. It hit me that I've been paying overdraft fees on dumb subscriptions for years while she's got it all sorted with paper envelopes. Has anyone else had a random stranger reshape how you handle money?

2 comments

2 Comments

theagibson1mo ago

That "it hit me" moment is real. My friend saw something similar at a grocery store, not even a bank or anything. Some guy was paying his bills with cash at the customer service counter and had all his envelopes labeled "water bill," "electric," "rent." My friend was literally just buying a pack of gum and a lottery ticket, but she stood there watching him for a solid minute. She went home and started her own envelope system that same week. It helped her stop the endless Netflix and gym membership auto-payments she forgot about.

lunaf671mo ago

My sister did this exact thing after seeing some lady at a Walmart checkout with like 8 different envelopes. She was so hyped about it, bought a whole pack of those manila envelopes and a label maker. Two months later she was back to using her credit card for everything because she kept losing the envelope for gas money (which is kind of important, right?). I mean, if you have the discipline to keep track of 12 different paper pockets in your purse then more power to you, but most of us are just gonna end up with a purse full of crumpled envelopes and the same overdraft fees.