Budgeting by carrying only cash — An experiment in self-controlled spending

For the first time in about twenty years, I went on vacation with just cash in my pocket: $500 for 5 fun-filled days in New Orleans over the Thanksgiving holiday. I picked the amount of $100 per day arbitrarily out of a hat. I had no idea if it would be enough for both my husband and myself, and if not, if I’d be able to resist the urge to pull out the “plastic.” We had a free place to stay at my Cousin Carla’s house, so we only needed to cover meals, entertainment, and souvenirs.

I haven’t lived on a cash budget since college in the late 1980s, when I took $20 out of the ATM every week and spent it until it was gone. My boyfriend at the time took up the slack, treating us to dinner out at restaurants with his weekly allowance of $40 from his parents (I had to work for mine).

In those days, neither of us had a credit card and couldn’t have gotten one even if we wanted. Credit cards weren’t given out nearly as readily as they are now, which was a good thing. I didn’t qualify for a major card until I was out of college, working full time, and only after building my credit score by successfully managing an account from a major department store (JCPenney) for a little over a year.

The cash method is a tried and true method of budgeting, still practiced by those who don’t trust putting their money in a bank. I’ve known many a man who turns his paycheck into cash every Friday, then pays any bills that are due before blowing the rest by having fun going out over the weekend. By Monday, he’s nearly broke and living off a tuna fish, frozen vegetable and macaroni and cheese casserole until the next paycheck arrives.

My husband and I loosely follow the cash method of budgeting with our weekly lunch allowances. However, this was the first time either of us had tried to follow a budget on vacation, a time when I tend to live high on the hog, then pay the price when I return home after racking up hundreds of dollars on my credit card.

To make the budget work, we didn’t include filling up the car with gas. First, there was no telling how much gas would be since prices yo-yo up and down like a bungee jumper from day-to-day and vary from station-to-station, as well as from city-to-city and state-to-state due to locally imposed taxes. Second, we had to have gas, so running out of money to pay for it was not an option.

The first road block to staying on budget occurred on the way to Louisiana. My car overheated in Tallahassee and my husband and I and the nice man at the Costco gas station couldn’t find any busted hoses, mostly because it was raining buckets and water was everywhere. Everyone we surveyed expected that the thermostat had gone bad, a cheap fix. I had to get a tow, but expected it to be free through my new AAA membership. It wasn’t — only the first five miles were free and the rest were charged at $5 per mile.

Cha-ching! Tow at $20.

I have a reasonably new car, still under partial warranty, and only felt comfortable getting work done by a licensed dealer. The repair shop found the problem right away – critters eating the hoses, probably squirrels – no kidding! Although many gnawed hoses could wait, the one to my radiator had to be replaced. (I got to keep the old hose with the gnaw marks for proof — knowing no one would believe me.)

Cha-ching! Dealer repair at $267

Unfortunately, the repair shop didn’t keep parts in stock and had to order them. It would take a day to repair, so we had to stay overnight at a hotel where the dealer got us a discounted room.

Cha-ching! Hotel room at $44.

Including meals, we had now spent $378 of our $500 budget and we hadn’t even made it to New Orleans, yet. Bah humbug! We had no choice but to break the budget and go to the ATM for more cash, a small portion of which we would use to pay for meals on the trip back home. This left us roughly $65 per day for two fun-filled days in New Orleans.

The details of how we spent the money will completely bore you. However, the attitudes of the people around us who we informed of our “daily budget” were both surprising and unexpected.

My cousin Carla watched with amusement our regular habit of pulling out our cash to see how much we had left. It didn’t sink in that we were serious about following our budget until we were nearly out of money that first night. “I would just use plastic,” she kept saying.

“Normally we would. But, that’s what gets us into trouble,” I explained. “I just paid off the credit card with my non-FDIC insured money market, since I had to close it out anyway.” Although there was nothing to stop us from racking up the credit card again, we decided we’d rather save the “plastic” for emergencies.

My cousin’s boyfriend, Ricky, was disturbed by my husband’s public display of cash. “You’ll get robbed. I know this town,” he warned. “Promise me, you’ll never do it again.”

“Okay, I won’t,” my husband promised and agreed to count his money inside his wallet, under the table. He wasn’t used to paying with cash and is very trusting.

“I’ll pay for it. Don’t worry about it,” said Ricky.

“Save it. You’ll need money tomorrow,” said my cousin Carla.

However, our goal was to spend all our money by the end of the night. The next day, we would start fresh with our next day’s budget. I didn’t want to be a leech, but agreed to let my cousin’s boyfriend pay for dinner because he really wanted to impress us and treat us to something nice. We would make up for it by buying their drinks the rest of the night until the money ran out.

The next day, when my cousin called her boyfriend to discuss the plans for that night, we heard her sigh and say, “They’re doing the money thing again.”

The money thing? Since when is budgeting with cash considered unusual and odd?

That afternoon, we met up with one of my husband’s friends from work with his wife, also in New Orleans for the holidays. We treated for brunch at the Café du Monde, which sells an affordable small cup of coffee for $2 and a decadent pastry called a beignet. The total cost for the five of us, plus a souvenir mug, was only $25. We mentioned to Carla that we had $40 left of that day’s budget, enough to pay for her parking and for the three of us to eat dinner at a sandwich shop we’d passed the day before.

What we didn’t anticipate was that my husband’s friends, who overheard us, assumed that we are hard up for cash. “We aren’t,” my husband tried to explain. “We’re just on a budget.”

At work the next week, the friend insisted on buying lunch for my husband, still under the impression that because we are limiting our spending, we must be in financial trouble. The friend is in his mid 20s and has carried a credit card since his teens. The concept of voluntarily limiting spending has never occurred to him and his young wife, who buy nearly everything on credit.

Although our budget did cause some awkward moments, we’re laughing all the way to the bank. I just balanced my checkbook and we actually saved a small amount of money last month despite going on vacation (a challenge after grocery prices and utilities went up this summer).

I only wish I’d used the same method of paying in cash to buy Christmas presents — I’m already over budget!

Shopping Cart Etiquette

My biggest pet peeve – not putting back your cart. A photo of a Walmart parking lot by Tara Leigh Cobble shows carts unceremoniously abandoned by shoppers.

While you browse for your turkey, pumpkin pie, and stuffing ingredients this holiday season, please be considerate of your fellow shopper. Follow the “rules of the aisle,” just as you might follow the “rules of the road” while driving.

CART STEALING

While shopping in Lowes one weekday evening when the store was not very busy, I warned my husband to not let his lumber cart out of his sight. I’ve been a victim of cart stealing in the past and for some reason, a little voice warned me that our cart was in danger of being nabbed. I learned long ago that you have to put something – anything – in your cart, just so that no one walks away with it.

We traversed the seemingly mile-long warehouse, picked out some light bulbs near the entrance, a sink stand in the plumbing aisle, and backtracked to the appliance department so we could pick out a new refrigerator (ours was moaning like a ghost) before picking up shelving board – the reason we got the lumber cart instead of a regular cart. My husband parked the cart near the replacement stove burners where we could keep an eye on it. We then entered the maze of dishwashers, stoves, and washing machines and worked our way back to the taller appliances.

Sure enough, the cart was nabbed the moment we had our heads turned. Fortunately, the items we had painstakingly selected were discarded by the thief, unceremoniously piled up on top of the small appliance shelves. We went through the store attempting to find the perpetrator, someone driving a lumber cart with a squeaky left front wheel, but were unable to pin down the perpetrator. Was it the roofer with two assistants or the Sunday deck builder? Perhaps we’ll never know.

This wasn’t the first time I had been victimized in such a fashion. A few years earlier I lost my cart in a department store during harried Christmas shopping. I was not so lucky that particular time, for I could not find all my items and had to start over at the front of the store, reselecting what I could. I later found in someone else’s cart, the unique wrapping paper I’d picked out – the last roll with that print – and confronted the driver of that cart. The woman was very apologetic, but swore she picked it up from a shelf and didn’t steal the actual cart.

What kind of person would do this? – perhaps the same thoughtless person who parks their car in the loading zone so that when you want to load your lumber, you can’t find a place to park. (If you’re that decrepit, get a handicapped tag so that you can legally park close to the door.)

Of course, if you take a cart by accident, it is quite forgivable. I myself stole someone’s cart yesterday in Costco (a thousand apologies).  I had stopped for a complimentary sample of roast turkey and parked my cart loaded with prepared Thanksgiving delights in the precooked meat aisle. I left with what I thought was my cart, got a few aisles over, and realized my shrimp was missing and in its place, a bundt cake. I quickly retraced my steps and found the bewildered older couple whose cart I had accidentally nabbed. “Every item is identical except one,” I explained, “I’m so, so sorry.” They were relieved to know it was an honest mistake and they would not have to start their shopping over.

If you are in the back of a store and happen to see an empty cart sitting alone in an aisle, please announce loudly, “Is this anyone’s cart? I’d like to use it if not. Excuse me, ma’am, did you see anyone using this cart? Sir, did you?” and so on... If no one comes forward to claim it, feel free to take it, for you can rest assured that you did the best you could. If someone comes back to claim it, offer to go up to the front of the store and get them another cart.

SHARE THE ROAD

While navigating packed grocery store aisles, please keep to the right. Otherwise, you are asking for a nasty traffic jam, perhaps with bumped children’s shins and snagged clothing.

SLOW TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT

Drive on the right and don’t be offended if someone zooms past you. They probably need to get home to rescue the turkey from a house packed with in-laws that believe that cats should eat off the dining room table with the humans.

NO LOITERING

This is Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas – thirty days of the biggest feasting of the year. You have to grab and go, grab and go. Don’t be picky. Move along. If you don’t think your indecisiveness is a problem, turn and look deep into the pleading and very tired eyes of those shoppers politely waiting for you to move forward. If that doesn’t grab at your heartstrings, you might as well have frozen peas for feelings.

My solution, park your cart somewhere out of the way and go into the aisle sans cart. That way, you can take your time browsing the various varieties of cranberry drink in search of the only one that actually contains 100% real cranberry juice.

OFF THE ROAD DRIVING

Carts are not intended for fast food lines, lottery ticket lines, dining areas, and the tire sales lobby. If you want a Polish hot dog, put your groceries away in your car and go back to the fast food line. If you must keep your cart near you, put it somewhere out of the way such as up against a wall or on the side of a freezer.

PROPER SIGNALING

Whoever said that you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar must have been talking about grocery store etiquette. If you need to turn against traffic, stop, look into the eyes of the oncoming driver, and ask nicely, “Do you mind if I go down this aisle?” Add a sweet smile, and they will melt like butter on homemade rolls, stop, and kindly let you pass.

TAILGATING

We sometimes become bullies driving metal boxes with wheels, whether behind the wheel of a Hummer SUV or behind the wheel of a metal grocery cart. It’s easy to push our way into lines, jump in front of others, and force our way into places we would never feel comfortable going if we didn’t have a cart to protect us.

It happens frequently. I’m in line, unloading my groceries while the cashier is still checking out the customer in front of me, and I feel the cold metal nudge of a cart on my backside. The shopper behind me is in a hurry and imagines that by pushing on my buttocks with their cart, they will somehow get through the line faster. Of course, this never works. This isn’t a two-lane freeway and I couldn’t “get over,” even if I wanted to.  Pushing on me won’t speed up the the cashier or the customer in front of me, just as tailgating me with your car and flashing your lights at me when I’m stuck behind a slow poke myself won’t do any good, either.

WHOOPS! WRONG EXIT

You are now in line, your groceries piled on the conveyer belt, and you just remembered you forgot to pick up that one item that you came to the store to buy – the Dijon mustard. You panic “I must have the mustard!” and run blindly back to the condiment aisle to find the rare imported French mustard that makes your pigs in a blanket hors d’oeuvres perfect. In the meantime, the clerk is about to begin ringing up your order, only to discover that the person standing in line before them is not intending to pay for this fine array of groceries. What to do? What to do? Everyone exchanges looks and the clerk debates whether or not to void the whole order and toss all the groceries in a cart for return.

Just like on the road, if you’ve already started down the exit, you have really no choice but to keep going. Buy the groceries, put them aside by the manager’s office or service desk (keep your receipt with you) and explain to the person in charge that you forgot something. Buy the mustard in the express lane. It’s the only decent thing to do.

PARKING YOUR CART

When I arrived in Florida, I was shocked to see a Walmart grocery store parking lot strewn with dozens of carts amidst the parked cars. A lone cart sat in the cart corral, where one conscientious person cared enough to put it away. I watched as shopper after shopper unloaded their groceries, then pushed their carts aside, onto curbs, between cars, in bushes, and sometimes just abandoned them behind other cars (who might hit them), despite the cart corral being located only a few feet away.

The behavior was more than mind boggling. I had never seen anything like it before, despite living in several states including North Carolina and Washington State and shopping at grocery stores from Alaska to California where customers sometimes take their carts all the way back up to the store entrance.

Apparently, Florida is not the only state where this is a problem, as indicated in Tara Leigh Cobble’s photo from a Walmart parking lot in Sugarland, Texas. My theory is that perpetrators feel less guilty about not putting their carts away in a flat parking lot (as opposed to a sloped one) since they assume the cart can’t roll into a parked car. However, I still find myself pulling into a parking spot, only to discover a stray cart hidden from view that I must maneuver around or attempt to gently nudge out of the way with my bumper.

Grocery carts can do considerable damage to a car. I used to joke that my car had only been hit twice – by shopping carts. It was hit once in a Kmart lot on a hill in Raleigh, NC, when a stray cart went rolling, rolling, rolling down the hill and went *SMACK* into the rear passenger side of my car. It was hit again in a grocery store parking lot in Seattle where I tripped in a pot hole and did the damage myself to the other rear side. In both cases, I was able to remove most of the dent, but a slight crease remained and the paint didn’t match up quite right.

Perhaps the biggest inconvenience is felt among those with the least ability to manage stray carts – the disabled. I was mortified to see carts jamming the center sidewalk access between handicapped parking rows. I once took several minutes to clear a path for a woman with a cane who was practically in tears when she discovered she could not get through the mishmash of abandoned carts.

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD

There are no “cart” police. Our fine American Democracy allows numerous freedoms and these freedoms come with responsibilities. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Remember the golden rule, “Treat others as you would have them treat you,” or in this case, “Don’t do something to others you wouldn’t want them to do to you.”

Happy Feast Holidays!