Sunday 18 December 2011

Expenses envelopes for the Filofax Personal

Remember expenses envelopes? You could write all your details on the front and collect your receipts all in one place. I think you can still get them for the A5, but the Personal ones are history. Until now.

Yes, it's DIY time again.



Making your own means that you can put whatever headings you want. So apart from the date, description and amount, I just have a column called 'A/C' that lets me add a code to identify whether I paid from a Visa card, or cash or by switch, say.



The template is available as an editable MS Publisher document and as an Adobe PDF.  I used a font and line weights that makes this look very much like an authentic Filofax product, but you can change this however you like in the Publisher version.

Download your choice and get printing. The picture above should give you a clear idea of the folding and glueing you'll need to do. Here are the steps:

  1. Print out onto the A4 paper weight of your choice (standard 80 gsm is fine)
  2. Cut out
  3. Fold (I tend to do the folding before the cutting out, using the corner lines as folding guides, but it’s a personal choice.)
  4. Glue or tape one vertical flap to its twin (I use double-sided tape)
  5. Glue or tape the bottom flap (keep the top one unglued – obviously!)
  6. Punch holes
  7. Add to your ‘Financial’ section
Note that I've produced these on A4 paper because here in the UK and Europe that's our standard size. If you are using Letter paper, try to adjust your print settings so you don't 'scale to paper size' and end up with an envelope that's not quite the right size. 

I wish Filofax still sold the original envelopes. But the truth of the matter is, designing and making these was fun. And it made me wonder what else I could use full-sized Filofax Personal envelopes for, especially if I were to print on the front in landscape format. Hmm...

Update:

I've now made a video showing what to do once you've printed out the template.



14 comments:

Gerard said...

Ray, Thanks for the ideas, and for the templates - much appreciated.

terriknits said...

what a great idea! Thanks for the pdf. I've printed a few off. :-)

Anonymous said...

For your freelance writing, do you primarily use your personal or your A5?

Ray Blake said...

For the writing itself, I use Word on the PC, but ideas and notes are usually jotted down in the Personal Filofax.

Nikki france said...

wonderful!!! This is now included in my binder, thank you so much!!!
I wonder if you could also make something similar for CD storage in A5 size??? I would find that quite useful :))
Thank you for all you do, and share with us
kind regards, Nikki

Ray Blake said...

Nikki, that's an interesting idea and I'll give it some thought. My worry is that the inherent fragility of paper may be a limiting factor. One thing you could do right now is to download the Word version of the A5 expenses envelope, clear the expenses grid on the front and then use this for CD storage.

Ray Blake said...

Nikki, I've considered this further and will be posting an A5 CD/DVD storage insert you can make.

Paul B said...

Hi Ray, I have been using your Personal-sized expense envelope since you published it. I travel around 75% of the time so this has been the single, most useful self-printed insert for me. I realised I was entering things on the envelope, and things on the Filofax personal expenses sheet. Most of my info is the same type for the majority of trips. I've never used Publisher before but decided to have a go at making my own. I now have the key info which I need for my claims, all on one envelope. I'll mail you a copy. Thanks so much for this, it inspired me to make my own but I couldn't have done it without your template.

On a seperate note: I've been trying to use your Table of Elements as a tri-fold template to put my own info in. The problem is, when I delete the table and insert my own contents, all the crop marks move. Is there some way you could amend this to create a new template? I wondered if there is some way you could make it a background image or a watermark, I don't really know the details, but something embedded so they would always be there.

Looking forward to your CD holder too, I used them all the time in my A5 but haven't found them in Personal. Many thanks for all your contributions.

Ray Blake said...

Paul, give me your email address and I'll send you a version of the foldout template with fixed marks. The problem with a personal size CD holder is the width of the page; it's too narrow.

Unknown said...

Just found your blog and I LOVE it! Thanks for all the templates and inspiration. After devotedly using my Franklin Quest (as it was then) planner for many years, with inserts courtesy of my company, I changed jobs and worked for many years in a company which didn't provide anything. For the last 10yrs I've used a notebook plus scraps of paper for lists, and the Outlook Calendar for appointments. I have just gone freelance and decided it's high time to go back to a planner. I've bought a Filofax Personal size, but found that most of the inserts are nearly what I want rather than exactly what I want. Then I came across your blog. You've completely made my day! Thank you!

Ray Blake said...

You're welcome, Kate.

Marlee An said...

Thank you for this insert. It's very convenient for the new user of Filofax as me ! ((-:

Unknown said...

I just got my first filofax today and I'm already busy looking through all the interesting things in your blog and all the amazing templates.

Seeing the envelope was a bit like an epiphany. Not so much as storage for receipts, but also as one place to jot down how much I spend. I often buy at local farms and bakeries and they don't give you a receipt. I've tried using a notebook or a notepad to write down how much I've spend, but without much success.

I'm pretty confident that the envelope will be a lot more helpful :-).

Maria Lopez said...

Again, thank you!

I have to stop printing and go prep lunches and dinners for the rest of the week because it's been really hot during the day too cook. LOL!

Thank you for posting such wonderful things.

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