A printable envelope chart hides the only hard part
Charts stop at the total. $347 is 8 bills as one lump and 26 once it is split five ways, and the second number is the one you have to hand a teller.
Search for a cash envelope chart and you will find hundreds of them. Every one does the same thing: a column of categories, a column of amounts, a line at the bottom with a total. Print it, fill it in, take the total out of the bank.
The total is where they all stop, and the total is the one number that does not survive contact with a cash machine.
$347.00, twice
Say your envelopes come to $347.00. As a single withdrawal that is 8 bills:
- 3 × $100.00
- 2 × $20.00
- 1 × $5.00
- 2 × $1.00
Now split it the way the chart told you to — groceries 40%, gas 20%, eating out 15%, fun 15%, misc 10%. Each envelope has to come out exact on its own, because an envelope you cannot fill exactly is an envelope that borrows from the one next to it. That takes 26 bills:
| Envelope | Holds | In bills |
|---|---|---|
| Groceries | $138.80 | 1 × $100.00 · 1 × $20.00 · 1 × $10.00 · 1 × $5.00 · 3 × $1.00 |
| Gas | $69.40 | 1 × $50.00 · 1 × $10.00 · 1 × $5.00 · 4 × $1.00 |
| Eating out | $52.05 | 1 × $50.00 · 2 × $1.00 |
| Fun | $52.05 | 1 × $50.00 · 2 × $1.00 |
| Misc | $34.70 | 1 × $20.00 · 1 × $10.00 · 4 × $1.00 |
The gap between 8 and 26 is not a rounding curiosity. It is the difference between a withdrawal that works and one that leaves you standing at the counter breaking a fifty into the grocery envelope because the machine only gave you twenties.
Why not just take out twenties
Because $347.00 is not a multiple of twenty, and neither is any envelope inside it. The moment one envelope is short, you break a bill from another, and the system that was supposed to make the money visible has quietly started moving money between categories — which is the exact failure the envelopes existed to prevent.
There is also a floor: US bills stop at $1, so any amount with cents in it cannot be withdrawn exactly. This split leaves $2.00 that no combination of bills can produce. Worth knowing before you go, rather than discovering it at the counter.
What a chart would have to do
To be useful at the bank a chart would have to break every envelope into 6 denominations, add those up across every envelope, and hand you one slip. That is arithmetic, not a layout problem, which is why the printable never does it — and why we built the thing that does.
All amounts are computed in integer cents and rounded up when splitting a bill across paychecks, so a plan never funds a bill short. Pay-period counts follow the calendar: 52 weekly, 26 biweekly, 24 semi-monthly, 12 monthly. Written by Larder, makers of an envelope budgeting app for iPhone. Last reviewed .