Faced with inflation at 4.8% in April 2022, the explosion in the price of fuel and food, purchasing power has become the main concern of the French. Mother of two children, Angélique Daly has returned to the good old method of money envelopes. Its principle: pay everything in cash “because you don’t spend in the same way as with a bank card or in contact. Every time we have a banknote in our hands instinctively, we will think before spending it ”.

And it works ! Moreover, thanks to his advice on social networks, his community has more than 27,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel and 210,000 on Tik Tok. The Rouennaise thus created the company l'Univers d'Ange Line and after a report in the program Capital on M 6, the counters panicked.

“Despite good salaries, we did not put money aside”

It was during the confinements that everything started. So Ile-de-France, Angélique left Île-de-France with husband and children to settle in Rouen: "I needed to change regions, a quieter life for my children". Former director at Éric Kayser in Paris, which manages bakeries, at 36, she must, while waiting to retrain, pay more attention to her budget: “Despite good salaries, we did not put money aside. I did not understand why. So I developed my method. For me, it worked so well that I wanted to share it on social media. This was not done at all in France, because talking and showing money is still taboo. And, it was such a craze that after 18 months, I was able to open my company, the Universe of Ange Line”.

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Faced with her, it is mainly women, pensioners or students who consult her, on the too expensive life, the too low wages and the too high rents, the inflation of the prices of fuel and food or "everything simply because they are spendthrifts. There are all scenarios. From people overdrawn by several hundred euros and who can't manage to get by, to those who have good salaries, but who want to put money aside without succeeding and sometimes end up having problems with their banks. It is the main subject in a home. The one that causes disputes and separations, ”explains the entrepreneur.

For Angélique, there is no miracle, "just apply a method that should not be frustrating or private. We all have a budget and we have to fit into it and make do with it. So yes, we all have subscriptions for the Internet, streaming or boxes, but we have to take them into account. The first point I would make is that your bank is not there to help you. Some even refer clients to me now. So, first, you have to make your budget. You have to go through the account statements. Make the list of mandatory expenses, point out those that can be renegotiated even deleted. There, I can tell you that there are plenty of them. I now apply this task to myself once a year. It’s effective and it saves me several hundred euros a year.”

Always an envelope for emergency expenses

Manage your budget… and spend accordingly. Once the available sum has been withdrawn in cold hard cash, Angélique makes envelopes, according to categories: food, fuel, hobbies and pleasures for the children, expenses for animals if necessary and "always an envelope for the emergency expenses and savings. I estimate needs and if I don't spend it all in one envelope, the balance may slip into another or become savings. It is a method which, if it is checked daily on an account book, allows you to spend differently without depriving yourself, to anticipate and to save money”.

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A method, a discipline that she ended up monetizing by creating her company. Its founder, who is a perfectionist, wanted beautiful envelopes. So she created a laminated range (packs of ten zip envelopes for 30 euros for example) with binders and a notebook model: “These are products on demand that I make by hand. I now send them to France, but also to Europe, Africa and as far as Canada. After Capital, it exploded. I made in one week the figure of six months. Besides, I continue to ensure my broadcasts and respond to requests and questions. I have a lot of feedback from people who are no longer in the red or have been able to afford weekends or vacations. Personally, this method allowed me to budget three months for groceries and rent in advance. You just have to find balance,” advises Angélique Daly.