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I am excited and kinda overwhelmed at the response my lovely free envelope template is receiving from the blogging community. THANK YOU for all of the comments and the many, many, many links!

You know what else I’m excited about? That something as simple as one of my hobbies might be making a lasting impact on others. Weird, huh? I mean, I create Papercraft Templates. I love it! It’s not just a source of income that allows me to stay home with my boys, but it’s also a wonderful creative outlet. I love it when someone links me up to their creation or when I’m searching through galleries and find a masterpiece created with one of my templates. But, it’s just paper, people!

Oh, but cash is just paper, too, and it can really help us or really hurt us. I love that my simple little template is causing people to stop and think about the way they spend money. So many of my blog readers have gotten into the habit and endless cycle of using credit cards to get by from month to month. Trust me, I know how you are feeling. I read this post by FishMama about their credit card spiral and it fit us to a T. We never had credit card debt, but we had to use our credit card just to get to the next paycheck. We were living plastic to paycheck, and it SUCKED. (My mother just cringed that I used that word. Sorry mom, but it did!)

SO, as of September, our credit cards are currently sitting in a cup of ice in the freezer. And, you know what? We don’t miss them at all.

Weird, huh?

I’ve been linked up all over the internet this week, which has led me to some fun articles about using the cash system. Thought I’d plop ‘em here for my readers to refer to! Here ya go:

Dave Ramsey’s Envelope System by Dave Ramsey

Keep Your Spending Tidy with the Envelope System by Simple Mom

Where Do You Start When You’re In Debt by Life As Mom (and keep reading through her whole series!)

The Envelope System Experiment by Jenny (guest post) at Money Saving Mom

Budgeting 101 - Part 1 and Budgeting 101 - Part 2 by Money Saving Mom (Crystal has all kinds of great articles about how her family stays out of debt. They put her husband through law school with no loans, and they just finished saving 100% for a down payment on a house! Oh, plus I LOVE her coupon posts! LOL!)

Enter your pretty envelopes in the 3D challenge going on at Papercraft Planet! Such cute projects!!

My first Mr. Linky Party!

I’ve never hosted a Mr. Linky party before, but I thought it would be a great way for everyone to share what works for them when it comes to budgeting. If you have done a blog post regarding your budget, share it with us so we can learn from you! However, be sure you follow the rules, or your link might be deleted!

1. Write your own blog post.
2. Within your post, please link back to my blog so that your blog readers know where to find this party and can learn, too! You can write something like this: I’m linking this post to The Cash System Stories at Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs (and, of course, linky-linky).
3. Then, come back here and type in your name or post title in the first line of the Mr. Linky widget. Next, copy the url of your post (highlight the address box up top), then paste your post’s url into the Mr. Linky widget. Do not just copy and paste your home page url, but click on the title of your specific post, which will bring up the specific post’s url.
4. Click enter, and your link should show up!

I’m excited to see what you share! If you don’t have a blog, go ahead and share with us in the comments!

I’ll see you back here for $2 Tuesday (where one item from my store is on sale for only $2!!).