The idea is you spend less if getting your money is unnecessarily complicated. Plus since you can physically see your money going away it "hurts" more so you'll

The idea is you spend less if getting your money is unnecessarily complicated. Plus since you can physically see your money going away it "hurts" more so you'll be more likely to spend less. This doesn't "work" for everyone. OTOH what really helped a family member of mine understand how much he was spending was getting a credit card. He was on all cash for years and then moved to all debit. Never had any idea what he was spending because if he needed cash he'd just hit up the ATM or when he was using debit just swipe. He always spent less than he had/made but he wasn't paying attention to the amount on a larger scale. Once he got a credit card (at my suggestion) and started putting everyday purchases on it the bill would come at the end of the month. When he say down to pay it off he had to confront the entirety of the money he spent that month. He'd say "what the hell did I spend ${amount} on?" and he'd comb through the transactions and get a much better idea of his spending habits and was able to reduce the purchases that weren't providing him much value.