jars of money

Since my last post about living the frugal dream I have decided to organize our weekly and monthly budget as Gail Vaz-Oxlade recommends {for my American readers,  I guess you could say Gail is the Canadian version of Suzy Orman}.  I entered our numbers into her interactive worksheets she has available on her website to figure out what each of our five jars will hold.  There is a jar for the main variable expenses such as food, entertainment, gas, clothing and gifts, and one for miscellaneous purchases.  As you can see I mod podged some doilies and washi tape onto our jars since they're going to be sitting out for all to see.  No reason they can't be pretty at least.

We have a total of $284.77 to "play" with each week.  The goal is to use only cash all the time.  Then you spend the money, you replace it with the receipt.  Generally speaking, it is rather like a big game of "Life" and we are treating it as a fun challenge in which the we win financial freedom.  Any leftover cash can be dumped into the next week and at the end of the month you can spend it if you were saving for something special or you can put it down on an outstanding loan or savings.

You'd think the strict rules and numbers would be stressful, but it has had the opposite effect on us mentally.  You can let go of guilt or worry when spending when you know everything is where it should be and that if you play right you can still get what you want; you may just have to wait a little longer.

Oh, and uh, Happy Black Friday.

go gently + be wonderful

e.