“Young people and students in Australia, New Zealand and globally are rediscovering cashMoney in physical form such as banknotes and coins. More – and hash tagging it,” claims the campaign.
Controlling their budget and saving for goals are the key reasons why increasing numbers of young people reject phone, card, and Buy Now Pay Later payments apps to use cash.
The hashtags #CashStuffing and #100EnvelopeChallenge on Tik Tok, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook feature students, young parents and 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 dollars 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 choose envelope number 7 and are required to save $7 that day.
If the person follows the challenge correctly and saves each day, they will have $5,050 after 100 days, a little over three months.
Cash stuffing envelopes, folders and binders are popular and selling strongly on Amazon and hobby/handcraft site Etsy which currently lists 990 cash stuffing binders and associated products.
“Cash is the most powerful budgeting tool of all,” said Jason Bryce, spokesperson for the CashWelcome.org campaign. “Cashless paymentA transfer of funds which discharges an obligation on the part of a payer vis-à-vis a payee. More systems, cards, Buy Now Pay Later apps and phone payments all reduce the user’s ability to budget and save by minimising the ‘pain of paying.’ Inevitably young people, students and everyone on a budget recognise the power of physical currencyThe money used in a particular country at a particular time, like dollar, yen, euro, etc., consisting of banknotes and coins, that does not require endorsement as a medium of exchange. More to impose discipline and give budgeting power back to the user.”
American financial adviser and media celebrity Dave Ramsay coined the term “cash stuffing”, and young people worldwide have adopted it as a method of controlling spending and setting savings goals.
In Australia, these are just a few of the many social media influencers promoting #CashStuffing and #100EnvelopeChallenge
Tik Tok:
@aussiebudgetqueen
@budget_fanatic
@traidmarc
@cashstuffingau
@carocashbudget
@jadebudgets
@cashstuffingau
@clkbudgets
@dieseldollarbudgets
@sarah_stuffs
YouTube:
CAROCASH
Ellen.plans
Frugal Aussie Adventures
Money talks budget
Gabbi Marie Cooking
Ellen Twibbles Around Aimlessly: Budget With Me
Janswallet
Vicky_Plans_Budgets
Cash Welcome is also on Facebook and Instagram.
According to an online survey that has collected more than 6,000 responses, cash is Australia’s favourite way to pay.