kt.lennox This post is for you. I have a series of posts for this section that will mainly be there for me. I mean, if they can help others figure out how to know more about themselves, so that it can make budgeting easier or even just so they would understand themselves to see adjustments that can be made to be intentional with spending, then GREAT!
If you don’t want to read this whole article, or just like to check things out for yourself – here are the main points: 1. Qube Money is the best bank/app for budgeting successfully. 2. I am an affiliate. 3 Here is the link to check it out – link.
Okay, so back to you. If budgeting is hard for you, or if your spending is not intentional (enough), and if all your finances are always playing catch up after the fact, I found a tool that can help you! Use Qube Money. It’s a bank account and app that are amazing!!
Qube Money – Disclosure – with the links in this post, as an affiliate of Qube Money, I receive bonuses for referrals. Confession – I have, and would, refer them without the bonus. shhh!! 🙂
I was looking for something that would work like cash envelopes without actually having to carry cash and I came across Qube Money. This bank uses Qubes as envelopes.
How to budget/allocate money – when you get your automatic deposit, it is deposited in the cloud. You allocate money to (fund) each qube, either manually or all at once with monthly budget that you set up for each qube. This acts as your budget – you can set it up to pay monthly bills, and have savings qubes, as well as spending qubes.
How to spend money – the debit card is empty and has no money available to use until you intentionally open the qube to use it. You have to open your envelope to get the cash out, right? Similarly, you have to open a qube to spend money with your debit card. **This company doesn’t have credit card options – which is so great – they are not tying to sell you debt.** I think this is a great security feature too, that your debit card has no money available until you “put” it there. You want to spend money? Open the qube (envelope) you want to spend from and swipe.
Just like cash, if you want to move money around to different qubes, you can – you have to do it intentionally and you see the qube that you are taking the money from to spend it. If I want to pay less of my student loans off so I can go to dinner, I have to consciously decide to. I will see that I am decreasing my debt payment to do it. If you are anything like me – that will make you think twice and will likely deter you from using money that is planned for goals like paying off debt. At this point, I am more likely to let another category suffer rather than stopping my debt payoff progress.
The bills qubes – these budgeted qubes are specifically for bills that are automatically paid from your bank each month. They have their own unique numbers to provide to the payee so that they do not have access to your account numbers or general debit card number. This also makes it easier to stop subscriptions and anything that you want to cancel. Money can be moved from the bill qubes to a spending qube if needed, but the amount in the bill qube cannot be opened for use with swiping your debit card – these are not point of service qubes. This would prevent automatic payment overdrafts or unavailable funds.
The saving qubes – similar to bill qubes, savings qubes cannot be opened for point of service swiping of your debit card. When ready to use money from these qubes, it will need to be internally transferred to a spending qube or bill qube if automatic. In this way, qube money is great for having dreams that can become reality. It is highly motivating to use these savings qubes as shrinking funds too – for Christmas, or a trip that money can be set aside monthly and there when you really need it without Christmas expenses (etc.) being a huge surprise to your budget! Truth be told – if you are saving for something more long term, it may be better to choose a savings account that gets high interest payments – but it is still super helpful to workout your savings muscles right here where you can see them!
So, this was a lot of “how to” and what Qube Money is like, but there are more posts to come about habits and tricks that I am learning, hope to learn, and ideas to help keep me on track. Most of all, and if nothing else, I hope that you can see the benefit of Qube Money and the importance of being intentional.