Mindful Money: Creating Financial Serenity with Cash

Faced with ‘rising consumer debt and an overwhelming feeling that the economy is worsening by the day’, WIRED magazine suggests the use of cash for managing daily expenditure offers ‘an undeniable mental health benefit’.

Both when budgeting and making payments, the tangible nature of cash enables simple visualisation of incomings and outgoings. Its comforting familiarity and ease of use have led to an uptick in popularity, especially among young people, and stories of its use in taking control of finances are sweeping social media.

Cash helps restrict frivolous spending thanks to the well-known ‘pain of paying’ with notes and coins. While waving a phone or card over a sensor can be done with little thought, when taking out a physical manifestation of wealth and handing it away to someone, it is harder to overlook the transfer of value occurring.

Lately, cash use is enjoying a renaissance as ‘a low-tech money-saving hack, thriving on TikTok’. WIRED does note, however, that its ‘new’ use is likely to be very familiar to older generations.

It highlights an anecdote from a classic interview with actors Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, where Hackman recalls visiting Hoffman’s apartment—long before either of them had enjoyed any financial success—and seeing mason jars full of cash in the kitchen. Each one was labelled to cover a different part of his budget, with categories including ‘rent’ and ‘books’. The one labelled ‘food’ was empty, and Hoffman asked if he could borrow some money. When Hackman pointed out he already had plenty, Hoffman explained ‘I can’t take the money out of the other jars!’

Today, in times of widespread economic hardship, this mason jar banking method is back in the form of ‘cash stuffing’. Money goes into labelled envelopes—that theoretically cover essentials first, then other items such as luxury spending or savings—enabling people to apportion money visibly and in real time. Once the money placed in a given envelope is gone, it’s gone. No more spending can be done in that category until the envelopes are topped up.

How-to videos abound, ‘typically showing a set of beautifully manicured hands moving cash from a withdrawal envelope or a wallet into a cash-stuffing binder (a series of envelopes or an accordion envelope), with each section labelled for a line item in the budget.’ The most successful proponents of the method say they have not only cleared their own debts, but also created businesses built around helping others take control of their money.

While ‘old ideas dressed up as modern-day memes’ are nothing novel, the enduring popularity of cash stuffing is notable. Financial experts are putting it down to the physical nature of banknotes and coins enabling people to reconnect with their finances, which can be harder to track as columns of numbers on a screen.