Young people and students in Australia are rediscovering cash as a powerful way to budget and save.
Controlling their budget and saving for goals are the key reasons why increasing numbers of young people are rejecting phone, card and Buy Now Pay Later payments apps and returning to using cash.
The hashtags #cashstuffing and #100envelopechallenge on Tik Tok, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook feature students, young parents and young influencers explaining how they use cash to set a budget and save for specific goals.
#cashstuffing means using physical cash kept in labelled envelopes or folders for planning spending and saving. Envelopes are labelled ‘groceries,’ ‘bills,’ ‘splurge,’ ‘clothes,’ ‘transport,’ ‘savings,’ and the like. Each payday the envelopes are filled with the specific budget for that period.
#100envelopechallenge is about saving $5,050 in one hundred days. Participants label one hundred envelopes with numbers 1 -100. Each day they pull one envelope from their stack and put place dollars in it equal to the label on the envelope. So, if the saver randomly selects envelope number 37, they place $37 in that envelope as their savings for that day. The next day they might select envelope number 7 and are only required to save $7 that day.
If the person follows the challenge correctly and saves each day they will have $5050 after 100 days, a little over three months.
Cash Stuffing envelopes, folders and binders are popular and selling strongly on hobby and creative handcraft site Etsy which currently lists 990 cash stuffing binders and associated products.
American financial adviser and media celebrity Dave Ramsay coined the term “cash stuffing” and it has been adopted by young people around the world as a method of controlling spending and setting savings goals.
In Australia, check out these social media influencers for more information on #cashstuffing and #100envelopechallenge:
Some Aussies on Tik Tok doing #CashStuffing or the #100EnvelopeChallenge:
@aussiebudgetqueen
@budget_fanatic
@traidmarc
@cashstuffingau
@carocashbudget
@jadebudgets
@cashstuffingau
@clkbudgets
@dieseldollarbudgets
@sarah_stuffs
Some Aussies on YouTube doing #CashStuffing or the #100EnvelopeChallenge:
CAROCASH
Ellen.plans
Frugal Aussie Adventures
Money talks budget
Gabbi Marie Cooking
Ellen Twibbles Around Aimlessy: Budget With Me
Janswallet
Vicky_Plans_Budgets
None of this would be possible without cash of course. In a cashless society, young people, like everyone else, will find budgeting harder and be left to try and control their budgets without the discipline of physical cash. Please sign and share our petition to say no to the cashless society:
https://www.change.org/saynotocashlesssociety
Please take five minutes to take our survey about ways to pay:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Australiapayments
Check out Cash Welcome on Facebook and Instagram.