After reusing the cash, the young man finally saved up

Written by Yang Xiaotong

Edited by Wei Weizi

Visual |

At the moment when he was planning to buy a hair dryer for 5 or 600 yuan online, but the payment page popped up "insufficient bank card balance", Bagel thought that his bank card had been stolen.

The 26-year-old is a native of Shanghai, and works as a government clerk with a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, which is more than enough for her to live a rent. She has always adhered to the attitude of being happy in a timely manner, buying whatever she wants, and has never paid attention to the balance in her bank card.

"There should be another five or six thousand yuan", she immediately opened the mobile banking to check her bill, and after reviewing it, she found that she had bought so many things for 180, 190, 280, and 290 yuan. It doesn't feel expensive to spend two or three hundred at a time, but what if you buy two or three hundred every day?

Bagel finally realized that he was spending money like water, and he should save money.

The "cash saving method" of some money-saving bloggers on social networks opened her eyes: every month, she will take money into cash, and distribute the cash in advance, such as food expenses, living expenses, travel expenses, etc., and ensure that the cash expenses in each area are within the limit when spending. Over the course of a month, these bloggers can not only ensure the daily standard of their families, but also save extra money.

One of the bloggers also recommended a documentary called "The Culprit of Uncontrolled Consumption", mentioning that people's online consumption is painless. "There was no pain when that number went out...... But spending cash is very intuitive, you have a wad of cash in your wallet, and when you take out the money every day, you see it getting thinner, and you feel it. Bagel said.

Indeed, mobile payment weakens the psychological pain of consumer behavior, and also invisibly increases people's transaction amount and purchase frequency. In SSRN's article, "The Impact of Mobile Payment Channel on Consumer Consumption," the authors point out.

Bagel decided to pick back this transaction method that has been despised and even abandoned by everyone - spending cash.

Since October last year, Bagels have been going out with their wallets every day. In the mezzanine of her wallet, she kept her food and living expenses for a week. Every time he went out to the convenience store or grocery shopping, Bagel never took out his mobile phone again, but took out his wallet to pay in cash under the watchful eye of the store owner who raised his arm to scan the payment code.

Two loose-leaf books,It's a key tool for her to store cash - she pays her salary every month,According to the consumption scenario,Bagel will divide the money into daily expenses and storage expenses in advance (that is, the money that will not be spent at the moment but needs to be saved for future spending, such as travel, beauty money),Put them in the loose-leaf file bags of these two books。 It's a common way to spend with cash these days, and it helps her better limit her spending in each area.

For Bagel, the wallet that is thinner after spending once, and the intuitive numbers on the cash, make her more rational when spending; the "0 balance" in the bank card makes her no longer see those cute gadgets that only sell for 9.9 yuan in the live broadcast room, and she spends money like water; Every month, bagel can save at least a few thousand dollars.

The choice of bagel is not a minority. The "Houlang Research Institute" found that more and more young people are starting to use cash like bagels, and their original intention is the same as her - to save money.

Can cash consumption really change the habit of consumption and reduce the desire to spend? After cash consumption, what is their record in saving money? The "Hou Lang Research Institute" chatted with four young people who started using cash last year, and the following is their account.

Take out the money every day,

You feel it when you see it getting thinner

After working for three years, I didn't have the consciousness to save money.

When I used to live with my parents, I didn't save any money, but I didn't clean the money in my card, so I didn't feel particularly big about expenses. It wasn't until I moved out on my own and lived alone, and I didn't pay my salary for three consecutive months in June, July, and August last year, and I only had a few hundred dollars in my card, that I realized that the money didn't seem to be enough.

For example, if I buy a slightly larger piece, I want to buy a hair dryer for 5 or 600 yuan at a time, and when I pay, it will prompt that the bank card balance is insufficient. I was surprised, the first reaction was that the card may have been stolen, I thought I should still have 5 or 6 thousand yuan, I also went to look through the consumption records, and later found that it was indeed spent by myself, all 280, 290, 180, 190 expenditures, spending money like water.

At that time, I didn't want to limit my consumption, nor did I want to change my consumption habits, I just wanted to earn more money, so I searched the Internet for side hustles that girls could do. But I found that it is not easy, there is a blogger who works during the day and delivers food at night, or some little girls work during the day and go to the fruit shop at night to work part-time, ten or twenty yuan an hour, and the income may not be as good as me directly solving my consumption habits.

Later, in the keyword recommendation (in the search bar), I saw a lot of money-saving bloggers, most of whom were housewives in Japan and South Korea, who needed to take care of the expenses of the whole family, allocate cash in advance every month, and put them in different books according to categories.

When I continued to search for similar videos, I saw a blogger recommend a documentary called "The Culprit of Uncontrolled Consumption", which mentioned that many people consume now, but there is no pain. For example, if you buy something on Taobao and spend two or three hundred at a time, you don't think it's expensive, but what if you buy two or three hundred a day? It's just that there was no pain when the number went out at that time, and the 200 yuan was spent when it was spent, and the text message only showed how much you spent this time. But spending cash is very intuitive, you have a wad of cash in your wallet, and when you take out the money every day, you see it getting thinner, and you feel it.

So from November last year, I decided to use cash.

Before using cash, I kept a month's account, and found that my Engel coefficient was still quite high, so I decided to refrain from unnecessary expenses when using cash.

Every month, when my salary arrives, I give my parents some money first, and the rest is the amount of cash at my disposal.

Take the first month as an example, because I have to pay off the mortgage, even though I haven't got the house yet, I want to save it first, so I will first put the CPF loan of 2,500 yuan per month in an envelope and put a sticker. If I'm going to spend that money, I need to pull it out of the envelope and deposit it back in the bank, and there's a lot of things that can stop me from spending it.

Envelopes and stickers that are used when bagel is used for cash

The rest of the money will be put into the two "Japanese housewives with the same style" binder I bought. Each notebook has a bill page and a zippered bag just the size to fit a banknote. A notebook with oranges is used for daily expenses, and the other is a notebook with strawberries for storage expenses.

Among them, the daily expenses are a little more rigid, 1,200 yuan per month for food and drink (eat in the canteen at noon), 1,000 yuan for living expenses, 400 yuan for car fares, 250 yuan for water, electricity and gas, and 300 yuan for the daily expenses of two cats. There are 300 yuan for beauty expenses, 400 yuan for travel expenses, 200 yuan for the rotten fund, and 200 yuan for gold expenses. This is what I saved in advance for future enjoyment, maybe once in a few months, but every month.

Since the second month, I have also saved an extra amount of money, 350 yuan per month, to cope with some personal contacts, or take my parents to the mall to go out to eat. I'll put the rest of the money from last month here as well.

I will leave 2,000 yuan in the bank card for a turnover fee, in order to meet some social needs, to deal with the situation that friends are looking for me to go out. For things like milk tea and coffee, which I can't quit, I will use my bank card to buy some group purchase coupons first, because the cost will be much less. But no matter how much I spend, I will take out the corresponding cash and put it in a turnover bag, and then deposit it in my bank card.

Bagels take out cash

One of the big changes after using cash is that I used to go out with my phone, but now I have to bring my wallet every day when I go out.

In Shanghai, although it is illegal to refuse to accept cash, most businessmen do not keep cash on a daily basis, and they do not even have a cash register machine. Therefore, when spending cash, we should consciously choose some convenience stores, chain stores such as Hualian supermarket, or supermarkets and stores around residential buildings, which can meet our rigid needs and stores are cashy, because some elderly people are still using it.

But most entertainment stores, such as pop-ups, boutiques, or small markets, don't accept cash. This will also allow me to consciously reduce some entertainment behaviors, control the number of social interactions, and pay more attention to rigid needs. The existence of cash is to allow you to sift if this thing is just needed, if you must buy this thing today, if there is no other place, I may scan the code, if there is other place, I may not buy it today, then I may not buy it.

But it's not easy to change your spending habits.

I think there are some people who are particularly restrained from their desire to consume, they just cook at home, spend 800 yuan a month, and don't buy clothes, I can't stand this. I think if it really gets to this point, maybe I won't be happy anymore. I just wanted to refrain from spending, but I didn't want to make myself unhappy. If I don't spend any money for a day, I will always go to the convenience store after work and buy a box of juice, an ice cream, or a bag of potato chips as my reward system.

By now, I've saved up a lot of cash. I haven't touched the mortgage, beauty expenses, and travel expenses, and I can leave 1 or 200 for food, living expenses, and transportation expenses every month. When each of these categories saves 10,000 yuan, I will open a new category and set a new goal to save money, for example, I may want to have a cat.

I just used cash and felt a little ashamed,

But it's better to have money to spend than no money to spend

I've always been a moonshine guy and can say that I don't have any concept of money.

As an accompanying mother, before the epidemic, my husband gave me 10,000 yuan per month for living expenses, but after the epidemic, our family's business was not particularly prosperous, and the monthly living expenses became 4,000 yuan. But my husband will also intermittently send me some money on WeChat, which is about 7,000 yuan a month.

After ten years of marriage, it's not like I haven't thought about saving money or keeping accounts, but every time it has come to an end. I bought a vegetable today, a salt tomorrow, and a soy sauce the day after tomorrow, and when I remembered it, I realized how I bought so many things that I shouldn't have bought?

Later, because the children went to school outside, my husband often borrowed money from his parents to invest, and my state was not particularly good, and for nearly two years, it was all revenge consumption. Sometimes when I lie in bed and find out that today I may be short of clothes, my children may be short of a pair of shoes, and I will buy them back. But when I bought it home, I found that there were clothes and shoes everywhere in the house, and there was no shortage of this thing at all, but it simply satisfied the desires of the time.

And my family is not only me who is moonlight, but the whole family is moonlight. In 2019, our family's education and training business, which had been in business for 5 years, finally improved, bought a house, bought a car, and saved some savings. But that year, our investment in the aquaculture industry failed, and we were saddled with a debt of more than 2 million. Although we can pay off this debt by selling some fixed assets, we still have two boys in our family, and I think they must have what they should have when they marry a daughter-in-law in the future, which can be regarded as a guarantee for the children to have in their mother-in-law's house in the future. So I told my husband that he would buy a house and a car for the child in the future, and I would find a way to save the bride price and three gold for the child's marriage.

I happened to brush up on social media that someone was saving money with cash, and I thought it was pretty good. I don't like to procrastinate, so I quickly bought two ledgers on the Internet and started saving cash directly.

Because my husband originally gave me living expenses on a weekly basis, it was not particularly difficult for me to plan the amount. I just need to change it into cash after my husband gives me my living expenses on a weekly basis.

After the cash arrived, every week I would set a limit of 200 yuan for groceries, 100 yuan for daily necessities, 250 yuan for fixed deposits, 50 yuan for pet expenses, 100 yuan for snacks, 200 yuan for seasonal clothes, and 100 yuan for the holidays. In this way, I will be able to save at least 1,000 yuan by the end of the month. For every 1,000 yuan I deposit, I will go to the bank to make a fixed deposit and get a certificate of deposit. This also limits my expenses, because if I want to withdraw the money, I need to run to the bank with my ID card to get it.

Cash used by Lucy

For example, our family is in business, and we used to collect some cash. Sometimes my husband is too lazy and doesn't want to save it, so he will give it to me, but I'm actually embarrassed to spend it because I always feel that spending cash is a shameful thing. I also told my aunt at home before, when will I find out that I have no money? So when I first started using cash, for example, when I went to the supermarket to buy something, everyone was queuing, and I would feel a little ashamed when I took out the cash from my pocket.

Later, I also wanted to open it, it is better to have money to spend than no money to spend. The funniest thing is that when I go out to buy groceries with cash, my mom and aunt won't let me pay because they think I'm out of money. I explained that I didn't run out of money now, I just wanted to spend cash.

I was talking to my mom last week, and she also said that when I was a teenager, I asked me to save money, and I argued with her that money is for earning, not saving. Because since I was in school, I really like to make money, and if I don't have money, I will find a way to make it, but I will not find a way to save it. But after I started using cash, I saw that there was no money in the cash bag every week, so I stopped buying it and waited until the next week. The disadvantage of spending cash is that if you take 100 yuan out, you can only spend 100 yuan, but in fact, this is also a benefit, it can help me limit unnecessary expenses, and the money can't be spent, so there is no habit of revenge consumption.

I haven't calculated how much money I have left over each month. But now in more than two months, there are almost 8,000 yuan in the account book dedicated to saving cash. Every day, I flip through my little notebook, and I feel happy when I look at it.

I also hope to use this cash to warn my husband, which is actually part of the reason why I use cash to save money. Sometimes when his parents-in-law and him ask for money to invest, even if it is 100,000 or 200,000, he will transfer money on WeChat and pass it over. I just want him to know that if the 100,000 or 200,000 yuan is paid in cash, it can really be paid a lot.

Every night,

I'll have to count all the cash in my hand

The first time I decided to save money was in 22 years, not to save money, but to be attracted by my appearance.

At that time, the way to deposit money with a passbook was very popular on the Internet, and some people said that the passbook of the Japan Post Bank was very good-looking, so I wanted to get one. But the bank staff kept persuading me to use e-banking, and there were not many people who used cash at that time, and the staff said that there is no passbook in the bank now, and if I want, I can make an appointment in advance and come back next week.

As a result, when I went to the bank next week, I forgot to bring my ID. Later, I was not so interested in passbooks, and I stopped saving money.

Until the second half of last year, the company's wages dragged on for longer and longer, which always gave people a sense of crisis. In addition, our company's performance is not good now, and the bonus is not paid, so after deducting the insurance provident fund every month, the money in hand is more than 3,000. I thought that if the salary was delayed for a long time, or if it was cut off directly, then I should have a reserve fund in my hand to cope with the situation of not paying wages for two or three months, or even four or five months.

In October last year, I stumbled upon two bloggers who deposited money using the 12 certificate of deposit method (depositing a deposit in the bank for a fixed period of one year for 12 consecutive months, waiting until a certificate of deposit matures every month in the second year, and then depositing the principal and interest of the certificate of deposit and the principal amount of the deposit in the second year into a new certificate of deposit) and the 36 certificate of deposit method (depositing a deposit in the bank for a fixed term of three years for 36 consecutive months, and then depositing the principal in a new certificate of deposit after the maturity of the fourth year), they would withdraw the money every month and then go to the bank to deposit a certificate of deposit。 I also wanted to use this method to save money, and in the process, big data began to push me to spend cash bloggers, and I saw that they used a calculator to calculate money every day, and then deposited cash in a loose-leaf ledger in the form of fun, so I officially started to use cash.

But there is no way to learn from those bloggers who save money for cash distribution in each area. Because like me, I only need to eat breakfast and dinner, and sometimes I don't even go out to eat, I just need to boil an egg or drink milk powder at home, and I can't learn from other people's car loans, mortgages, and children's expenses, so I will allocate my money according to my own situation.

Before using cash, I turned off passwordless payments on all apps. In order to calculate my average monthly expenses, I first went to the bank to withdraw 3,000 yuan in cash, and ate all the meals I could eat out in a month to see how much it would cost. In the second month, I went to withdraw 3,000 yuan, and this time I tried to eat at home to see how much it would cost, and then calculated an average and set the cost of eating each month.

Every time I pay my salary, I will take a whole number, for example, if I send 4460, I will take 4000 in cash, because I like to round up. The rest of the money is first charged with 100 phone bills, and then withdrawn and put into WeChat. But if there is money in WeChat, I really can't help but spend it. Every time I can spend a few dozen yuan in WeChat, the rest is used to go out of the parking lot to scan the payment code, because there is no way to pay in cash.

My rule for myself is to save at least 1,000 yuan in this book every month. Every week, I put the leftover cash in a small bag, and every 100 yuan I saved, I moved it to the savings book and painted a 100 yuan color card on the book. It was a very good feeling because it wasn't something I had saved, it was an extra amount of money that I had had.

Mumu's own customized color card

When I put money in the book every week, I would also take a video to record it, not for the fire, but for fun, and also to supervise myself. In order to make the video look less dry, I also bought an acrylic eyeshadow palette for 3 yuan 8, a black 9 yuan 9 organ clip, and found the calculator I bought for about 50 yuan and the envelope I bought when I made a handbook. And I think the process of stuffing money into the document bag is very similar to when I make a handbook, the process is very decompressing.

When I first started using cash, I was a little uncomfortable, and I often held my phone and forgot to take my wallet, but now I have taken my wallet but forgot my phone. One morning I got off the night shift, went to buy breakfast on the way, and when I got downstairs, I didn't realize that I forgot to take my phone. It wasn't until I got home that I realized that I hadn't brought my phone home with me, and I went back to the company to get it.

There are a lot of elderly people in our family, so every time we use cash, the merchant actually finds money quite smoothly. Every time I spend cash, I will also "show off" to others, and I used to tell people, big brother, I don't use Alipay to make cash. The eldest brother also said, okay, I can find it for you. And sometimes, buying things with cash will be erased by the merchant, for example, buying something is 22 yuan and 3 cents, and the merchant will say 22 yuan when he sees me take out my wallet.

And there is another advantage of cash spending, that is, it can make me think about whether this thing is just needed. Sometimes I see something on Taobao and I want to buy it, but I don't have money in Alipay, so I think I'll wait a little longer, and wait until next month's salary to see if I want to buy it, and if I want to buy it, I'll leave some money in the card. But when it came time to get paid, I realized that I didn't really want to buy it.

In addition to the fixed deposit of 1,000 yuan every month, I will have some cash balance, such as 1,500 yuan in November and 1,652 yuan in December. I once swiped a short video that said, "You have to like money, you have to touch it often, and you have to put money at home to attract it." "So now every night, I have to count the cash in my hand, and I like to count it.

The speed of using cash is really slow,

Because they don't take it when you want to

I decided to save money because I wanted to pay off my debts.

When I was young, I was ignorant, I spent money and invested indiscriminately, and I owed online small loans and bank credit loans, and I owed 470,000 debts in 8 years.

It wasn't until last year that I read a book called "Poor Women in Tokyo", where I wrote about a lot of women who were poor due to various circumstances, and their lives were actually very painful. Because of the female group, life is full of uncertainty as they get older, I feel that I have to be vigilant, no one wants a painful life, so now I have to plan ahead and plan in advance.

I'm going to make a try and live with the least amount of money. On the one hand, I want to have the ability to spend the least amount of money, so that even if I only have a salary of 2,000 yuan or 1,000 yuan, I have the confidence to survive. The second reason is that the part-time job is really tiring, and it is difficult to make money. I decided to give it a try when I saw people saying online that cash would be slower than online payments and that it would be more effective in saving money.

Our family's monthly living budget is 5,000 yuan, and every month I will put 1,000 yuan on my mobile phone WeChat, pay rent, water and electricity, charge phone bills, and give my husband 1,500 yuan online transfer, because he has to drive to pay for parking and gas. I will go to the bank to withdraw the remaining 2,500 yuan, and give my mother-in-law 1,000 yuan first, because she wants to help us buy vegetables, and the old man also thinks it is quite convenient to pay in cash. Then I gave my husband 500 yuan in cash, and I left 1,000 yuan for my own living expenses.

For me, the advantage of using cash is that every time I spend money, I have to open my backpack first, and then take out my wallet, for example, if I take out 50 yuan to buy something for 25 yuan, the other party has to take out the loose money from the bag and find me 25 yuan, maybe I regret it in the process, I don't want to buy it, there is a buffer process.

And every time I pay in cash, I will always remember to take the receipt, because if I don't take the receipt, I will not remember where the money went. Once my daughter wanted to buy a cotton slipper, and the supermarket put it at a special price of 9 yuan 9. After I paid 10 yuan in cash to buy it home, I felt that the money should not be spent, because I still had a pair of cotton slippers at home, so I immediately took the receipt and went to return it. If this is paid by scanning the code, I will definitely not take this receipt, and this 9.9 will be forced to consume.

But in fact, I don't use cash very much, only for grocery shopping. Because it took a while, I didn't feel that cash was particularly convenient.

One is that after I used the cash, I couldn't remember where it went. Sometimes I am very tired when I go home, and if I don't want to keep notes, I may not remember where the 5 dollars were spent when the accounts are put together for three days. But if it's WeChat Alipay, I can know that this money is for bread.

For example, if I want to withdraw a denomination of 20 or 50 yuan, I have to make an appointment in advance at the bank, and I must get it at that point in time, otherwise the bank will have no cash. Sometimes it takes three or five trips to the bank to get cash.

It took 5 runs to the bank to withdraw the money

And 100 yuan in cash is not possible to spend in many places. For example, if you buy a vegetable or a bun on the road, they will say that they can't find it, including many stores, which also let you pay online. Even my company will not accept cash, that day a customer took out a wad of money, there are 1400 yuan, although the company does not have a clear rule, but our staff said not to accept it, very repulsive. Because she received cash, she had to take time to go to the bank and deposit the money into the company's bank account.

This also proves that the speed of using cash is indeed slower than the speed of your online payment, because they don't accept it when you want to spend it. But I don't think this is the shortcoming of cash, it's the current social system that makes cash difficult to use and difficult to circulate. Society wants us to consume more, and it is painless consumption, you sweep me, I sweep you, and it will pass in a flash.

However, in our case, we can still spend cash in small denominations. So my suggestion is to take some small denominations when withdrawing cash, 10 yuan, 20 yuan, 50 yuan in cash, if you really can't find it, like that day I bought a second-hand piece, gave the merchant 20 yuan, she didn't have cash, so she scanned the code and returned 5 yuan to me.

I now use cash to develop a financial mindset in my children. Because she has been paying almost on her mobile phone, she has never looked at the money, and since this year, I have taught her to know what the face value of money is. I will also ask her to set a goal, for example, if she wants to buy an electronic watch, I will give him 5 or 10 yuan of pocket money every week, and let her put this money in a storage jar to save it, and then take it out at the end of the year, and then use the money to buy an electronic watch.

Since October last year, I have been throwing 20 yuan into the piggy bank every day using the painless savings method, and by the time of the New Year's Eve, I had already saved 2,000 yuan. When I opened the box, I watched the scattered money fall, and then I stacked it neatly with my hands, and then I counted it, looking at the pile of money, it was so comfortable. Later, I transferred the money to my parents, 1000 per person, and my mother praised me, saying that if I had known that I would save money, I would have been a little rich woman by now.

A clicky piggy bank

My brother is going to have a wedding at the end of this year, and I promised to give him a 5,000 yuan gift, plus the fare for our family's round-trip trip, it will cost almost 5,000 yuan. So at the beginning of the year, the money I threw in the storage jar became 30 yuan every day, so that by the end of the year, I could save more than 10,000 yuan. Otherwise, if I am asked to take out 5,000 yuan to him temporarily, and I have to spend 5,000 yuan to take the car, I will really be in pain, and I really can't take it out.

(All photos in this article are provided by the interviewee.) ）