Templates › Money › Digital Cash Envelopes

Envelopes — twelve drawn envelopes with the notes sticking out; one already overdrawn

What it does

The envelope system, without the envelopes.

The reason cash envelopes work is that when an envelope is empty, you stop. Most budget spreadsheets lose exactly that: they show you a number going red and carry on regardless. This one keeps the envelopes.

Every envelope holds a real balance.

Not a budget line that resets on the first of the month — a running balance that carries forward. Fill an envelope, spend from it, and what is left is still there next month. Turn rollover off for the ones you want to start fresh, like groceries, and leave it on for the ones that should build up, like car repairs.

When one runs dry, move money — and say so.

This is the part every other budget sheet skips. Log a MOVE and the money leaves one envelope and lands in another in a single row, so the total is never wrong and you can see exactly where you robbed Peter to pay Paul.

You can see how full each one is.

Twelve envelopes drawn as envelopes, three across and four down, with a stack of notes sticking out of the top of each. The stack is how full it is. One glance tells you what is fat, what is thin, and what you have already overdrawn.

What's inside

5 tabs

Envelopes — a wall of twelve drawn envelopes, each with the name written on by hand, a stamp, a postmark, and a stack of notes whose height is its balance; underneath, the table it is all drawn from: filled, spent, moved, balance, percent left and status
[object Object]
History — twelve months of filling and spending side by side, so you can see whether the system is actually holding
Start Here — plain-English setup, about five minutes
Sample data preloaded so you can see exactly how it works, then clear it in seconds

Why this one

Checked, not eyeballed

Rollover is per envelope, not a global setting — the whole point is that some envelopes should carry and some should not
No checkboxes to add, no scripts, no permissions to grant — it just works, including on the Google Sheets mobile app
Every formula tested against an independent simulation, including the awkward ones: an envelope moved into and out of in the same month, and an envelope overdrawn past zero

Formulas265

Evaluation errors0

Independent checks670

Built natively in Google Sheets. 670/670 checks against an independent Python recomputation — every envelope drawn on the wall is checked against the table it is drawn from, so the picture can never disagree with the arithmetic. Three bugs caught and fixed: conditional formats inside a card shifting row; the month selector placed in a 16px gap column; and a corrupted code transport.

The details

What you get

A thank-you page and email with your view-only Google Sheets link — open it, then File → Make a copy
Real checkboxes, sparklines and charts, built natively in Sheets
Instant delivery after payment; the link never expires

Your data stays yours

You take a copy into your own Drive. Everything you type lives in your copy. You can never edit the master, and I can never see a number in yours.

Good to know

Digital product — nothing is posted. Google Sheets only; you'll need a free Google account. Works on the Sheets mobile app. For personal use; please don't resell or redistribute the file. Something not working? Email me and I'll fix it.

Refunds

Instant digital downloads can't usually be returned once delivered — but if something doesn't work, message me before asking for a refund and I will sort it out. Full policies.