New Little pots of planned expenses

 I have been following the 'jar philosophy' of weekly expense budgeting for ....(doing the math) holy, 13 years. Wow, that 's crazy when you think about it. 

It has, without a doubt, been my saviour. 

I have one real payday a month and I create three fake others to give myself that guidepost for weekly expenses: Gas, 'mad money' spending, groceries/household. It has evolved over the years but the basic idea remains the same.

I still do  cash withdrawls. I know many of you who do this are very successful with debit/credit card versions of this. I have found that I am my most successful when I stick to cash. That became a bit more challenging when many places were not taking cash during the height of Covid times.

When, if I have any leftover money, it often goes into a holding jar. (yes there are real little jars). I use it for one thing or another as new planned expenses evolve.

Right now I have a few little side missions I am planning for.

 Any money leftover from the gas budget goes away and is used for the more costly gas expenses when I have to go to the city for my infusions. I am also tucking that away to use for my oil changes

I have two other little jars I started now. Both are for things that aren't concrete plans, but fingers crossed, will be. DS1's wedding. No, he hasn't proposed yet. They have been together for 7 years and frankly I am tired of waiting, but apparently that's not my decision :-)

The first jar is for the mother of the groom attire. Not sure what kind of wedding it will be but it will be nice to have $ set aside for when the time comes. I don't own many fancy clothes and I will want something special for that day.

The second little jar is for her veil. I don't have daughters and won't get to do the shopping for the bridal gown etc. I wanted to put some money aside for her for a veil, or her shoes, or jewelry....whatever she ends up deciding on. Just a small gift from me to her.

The amounts are huge and the additions to the jar don't go in regularly, but a little bit here and a little bit here will be a nice way to start things off when it's time.

Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Changing my money jar amount

Since the start of this journey, I used the money jar (Gail Vaz Oxlade) ,method to help me stay in control of how much I was spending on variable expenses.

At the start I had actual jars with the categories

• groceries (and household)
• gas
• spending money
• entertainment

I went to the bank and took out a week's worth (or two, depending on how often I wanted to go to the brick and mortar), came home and filled up my neatly labelled jars.

Once the money was gone, the spending for that category was gone. 

Some people use a spreadsheet. Some use envelopes. This worked for me. So well!

I went to the brick and mortar because my ATM only gave out $20s and I needed other denominations for the budgeted amount.

After awhile and a budget tweak, I would go weekly to the ATM to get my $, and come home to divide.

At the time I only got paid once a month, so I balanced the calendar to create 3 fake paydays to go along with my real one. I found that dividing my variable spending into four weeks allowed me to be much more successful than one large amount for the month. Hey whatever it takes to make it work.

I don't use the physical jars anymore for these categories.

The last time I see I did a $ amount was here in 2015.

Before that, it was here in 2014

I believe I have been using $280 a week since the 2015 date.

$180 groceries

$20 spending

$20 entertainment

$60 gas.

Some weeks I was hyper vigilant and keep 100% faithful to the amount.

Some weeks I was less so.

But I have kept to my weekly withdrawls for 'jar money'  for over a decade now. It has been one of  the critical pieces to whatever successes I have had.

It is time for a bit of a tweak.

Even though gas prices have gone up ( and down and up and down and up), I am not driving nearly as much. No kids to run around. Significantly less driving since Covid. That will change in the fall. I hope.

As for entertainment...we really don't do a whole lot. The past two years I did almost nothing, taking care of my parents. That amount usually just got funneled into groceries.

Groceries - well I am doing a lot more bulk shopping than I used to. Which really should be the way it is done anyways. Once  a month when I am in the city for my infusion, I hit Costso.  I had never really budgeted for that so it always threw things off and I was scrambling to cover.

So I have taken out the $20 each for spending and entertainment.

I have lowered my gas $ for each week

I have juggled things to make a Costco line that will balance out what I buy there in bulk with what I buy elsewhere.

I guess we shall see if it works.

A year of snowflakes

I love keeping track of the little ways money can add up. For me, there is no side hustle. During the school year there isn't enough energy to make it happen and during the summer I am recharging. I suppose I could find something in the summer if I REALLY wanted to.

Most of the money came from Tax returns. I was able to claim both boys this past year. For 2017 tax year I will just have the one, as DS2's tuition was all paid before the turn of the year.

The rest of the money came from my change jar, and the bits of money I was able to tuck away from jar money to repurpose for savings or debt goals.


In the past, this is how the snowflakes built up:

In 2016 the snowflakes were $5872
In 2015 the snowflakes were $8064
In 2014 the snowflakes were $3112
In 2013 the snowflakes were $3671
In 2012 the snowflakes were $3136
In 2011 the snowflakes were $4350
In 2010 the snowflakes were $5070
In 2009 the snowflakes were $4295

For 2017, my total was not the largest ever, nor was it the smallest. It floated in the middle.  $4770

My change jar for 2017

I do love my change jar.

Actually I have two of them. One is a piggy that used to sing when you put coins in. The toonies and loonies live in them. They other is a carafe of some sort. No clue where I got that from. All the other change lives in there.

I love putting my spending change in the jar and then counting it up at the end of the year. I still do it old school - hand roll and take into the bank. Love doing it that way.

For 6 months this year the change went towards the back to school planned spending. It seemed like an innocent and non threatening way to build up to that $500. After that, I put the jar money towards my 2018 TFSA, since I didn't make that goal this year.

Here are my ghosts of change jars past:

2012 -$549.50
2013 - $980
2014 - $512
2015 - $642
2016 - $825

Each year I think, hmmm I don't have that much. Especially when there are $0 months. then I do a tally and surprise myself.

January - $100
February  - $90
March - $0
April - $0
May - $100
June - $100
July - $50
August - $100
September - $100
October - $100
November - $100
December - $100

Actually this is spookily similar to last year's. Interesting.

For a grand total of $940

Not my highest ever but definitely up there.

I do recognize that if I spent less there would be less opportunity for change :-)

I plan to keep the same targets for next year - First $500 for Back to School and then TFSA.

If I were to have $100 per month (which I never do, then I would have a surplus of $100 to do go a third goal. We shall see.

Thank you change rolling for all those fun little memories.

a big Day, but a good one.

Today was the big day. The big shopping day before Xmas.

DS1 comes home later this week. It's time to get everything ready so I can enjoy his short visit home.

I have my Xmas money saved thanks to those planned savings goals. I also have been tucking $5 here and $10 there into a jar for the big grocery shop.

I made DH come with me. Someone to lift the heavy stuff, and since he isn't contributing, he can experience first hand how much it costs.

We headed to Walmart and got the cleaning supplies, a few last minute treats and all the food. Me and my list had a heck of a good time.

At one point DH says 'so where is all this money coming from?'  I respond and say "when you tuck $5 here and $10 there into a jar  all year long, the money is  here. Starting tomorrow I begin again for next year'. He gives me this look that is half skepticism and half processing the concept of planned savings.

We did a quick stop at Shoppers (again planned ) and got the 18 500 optimum points for the spend. Another quick stop at the LB (liquor board store) for a little wine and baileys, and then home to unpack it all.

I hadn't fully organized my cupboards before I left (I had done the fridge), so there was a lot of that while putting things away.

Sister 2 came for a visit and said that she had been over to mom and dad's and mom had started to share who gets what when she is gone. Those sorts of things are very important to her and that is one of the few things she can control, so that's the talk they had. I got a notebook out and showed Sister what it looked like and where I was going to put it at mom's so that we can start writing it down (we are their executors).

We have not told any of the kids yet. A couple still are in exam mode and there is no point disrupting that for them. Sister agreed that we would tell the kids before xmas regardless of whether we got the CT or not so they could make sure they took advantage of Christmas.

DH and I went over to their house and brought in Chinese at their request. Dad ate so much I am wondering how much he has been eating lately. I feel bad that I haven't been more on top of things.

We managed to get an HDMI cord hooked up to their TV which is bolted into their entertainment unit (it was made for a box tv and he got a flat screen but wouldn't get rid of the unit.) I managed to get the hockey feed  to load in their iffy wifi house and they got to see DS's game. It meant a lot to them.

The radio guy interviewed DS earlier in the week and played it after the first so they got to hear him being interviewed. My mom cried.  Then not long into the game DS scored (he is definitely not the highest scorer on the team).

It was a really good night.  I am going over tomorrow to take her for a bit of shopping if she is up to it and wrap up gifts for her. She only buys for the great grandkids now. There's just too many in the family otherwise.

October Change

Short and sweet

2 rolls of loonies = $100

Put in the bank for next year's TFSA savings goal

August change

August change was pretty good. Most of it came from the change when I went grocery shopping with cash. Anytime I go to Walmart or the Coop they try to encourage me to use the self check line ups. My response is - I am paying with cash and you can't use cash at the self check.

As I walk away I hear one clerk mutter to another - Who pays with cash these days?

me

mostly

For groceries anyways.

1 roll of toonies - $50
1 roll of loonies - $25
2 rolls of quarters - $20
1 roll of dimes - $5

Total of $100

This will be the first $100 to go towards TFSA 2018

A good start.

When you get paid once a month

I am always fascinated by how people with different pay cycles arrange their budget and paying bills.  Even within a household with 2 people, there may be different cycles.

Ex - DS2 works for the provincial government. He gets paid every other Friday

Ex - 2 DS1  works for a municipal government. He gets paid a small amount in the middle of the month (about $300), and gets the balance of his money at the end of the month. No clue on the logic of this one.

Ex - DH works for a municipal government and his pay period mirrors DS2's

As for me, I work for a provincial government and get paid once a month. Technically, I am only paid for 10 months of work. That would give me bigger paychecks during the school year, but leave me two months where there are NO paychecks. That scares the crap out of me.

As a full time employee, I can request they pay once a month x 12 months. This gives me smaller monthly cheques during the school year, but I still get 2 full pay cheques  in the summer ( I just noticed I have used both pay check and pay cheque in the same blog entry)

This works for me and gives me psychological peace of mind for the routine.

Getting paid once a month takes a bit of organizing to make sure you don't run out of money before you run out of month.

Somewhere back in the first year of my blogging, I decided to create 'mini paydays' within the month for my variable expenses (jar money). This would refresh my grocery, spending, gas and entertainment money each week.

The trouble is, that months are not 4 perfectly even 7 day groupings.

Below are pics of two pay cycles and how I create 'mini paydays' to mimic a weeky reset of my variable expenses.


So you can see that my actual monthly payday is the 25th of each month. In June, that fell on a weekend, so the money entered my account on the 23rd. I literally moved it temporarily into my savings until the 25th.

On my actual payday I withdraw my $280 from my checking account and that is my variable spending for the week.

(This will NOT let me left justify my text between pictures for love or money. Super annoying)

So you can see that I have created three additional 'paydays' to simulate a weekly payday. If I had simply gone one week to one week to one week my jar refill would have been sunday to sunday to sunday which would have left my month 'done' on the 23rd of July. That leaves unaccounted days. Survivable, but it did not feel comfortable to me. I tried.

So instead I 'added' a day to each weekly pay. June 25 to midnight of July 2 is 8 days. Then I added a day to the next weekly pay. June 3 to midnight of July 10. Another 8 days. I am now in line to have Tuesday pretend paydays on the 11th and 18th until my next real payday on the Tuesday the 25th.

This only added a day to each of 2 weeks. Not even noticeable.

Real payday on July 25th and everything resets.

Pretend weekly payday is August 2 (so another 8 day week). etc

As I said before I tried the Friday to Friday to Friday to Friday and just had to live with the extra days at the end of the month. I tried this for about 6 months. I always felt stressed about those extra days.

Then I came up with this plan and now, 7 + years later, I still use it.

I get my calendar at Christmas and spend a half hour  over coffee putting little stars on my actual payday and the following three pretend paydays, for the whole year.  Now my whole year is mapped out and ready to go.

I do actually think of those pretend paydays as paydays for my variable expenses. While my husband isn't on board, he does accept that when I say I have no grocery money left this week, he knows there is more money in the account for the next week, but that I am not willing to part with it until I hit my star day. He sees that it is working.

I no longer dread the last week of a pay month where most people have spend everything and have next to nothing in their account. I know that I have the same amount of money for groceries, or gas each week and I don't have to panic.

It may sound complicated but it is ridiculously easy to set up and was super easy to get used to. It is predictable and I know that I have $ coming to me every 7 or 8 days to refill the money jars.


I credit this system as one of the reasons I have remained mostly successful on this budget for 7 plus years.

Did that make sense? any questions??

June change

It looks like I am getting back into the swing of things. spending cash from my jars. NOT spending the change on munchies or Timmies.

I happily rolled changed and took it to the bank today.

• 1 roll of toonies
• 1 roll of loonies
• 1 roll of quarters
• 1 roll of dimes
• 5 rolls of nickels

Total $100

This went towards my back to school goal of $500. I now only need $50 to meet that goal.

I also finally had enough nickels to roll that last one to take an even dollar amount to the bank. I know, totally anal.  It took quite  awhile to get them. Will take awhile to get the same again :-)

February Change

This month's change went towards the 'back to school' fund.

A total of $90 was added.

• 1 roll of toonies - $50
• 1 roll of loonies - $25
• 1 roll of quarters - $10
• 1 roll of dimes - $5

January Change

January was a good month for change. I spent cash for groc / gas etc exclusively so there was a lot of change.

• 1 roll toonies - $50
• 1 roll loonies - $25
• 2 rolls quarters - $20
• 1 roll dimes - $5

Total of $100.

As previously planned, I am using my rolled change to put towards my $500 goal for Back to School. This gives me a total of $150 towards that goal.

As an aside, I have 2 rolls of nickels sitting in a drawer. Something in my OCD just refuses to take $104 to the bank. $100 makes me feel calmer.

Since we don't have pennies anymore and I don't have a current trip to the US planned, I suspect those nickels will stay nested until they have 3 friends and I have a more 'balanced' $10. 

Yup, I am weird.  

First round of Christmas grocery shopping

When the boys both went off to college last fall, I did not change my weekly jar allowance for grocery. Instead I tucked $20 automatically into a Christmas grocery jar. Any spare $5 or $10 went in too.

It was nice to have that money when I headed off today with DH to buy all the non perishable Christmas groceries and a few final presents.

First I made DH help me clean the fridge and tidy. You can't come home with bags of groceries and put them in a messy fridge or cluttered pantry. He grumbled but helped out.

It didn't take long to fill the cart with items from the list.  It felt good to have the pantry and cupboards full and ready to go.  It had gotten more than a little lean.

We just don't grocery shop the way we used to when the boys lived here full time.

Evolution of the Jars

I know plastic ruins a LOT of lives, but five little jar shaped pieces of plastic saved mine. Honestly.

They provided a way for me to visibly control my expenditures.

Such a gift those little plastic jars were.

I started on Money Jars in December of 2008. It was an exciting day. I had started this blog 6 months prior and was using an envelope system. I laugh hysterically when I think of what I had been putting in those 'envelopes' for each category. HUGE amounts. Unnecessary amounts. Unrealistic amounts. Nothing like deciding what was going in the envelopes before considering my income, my expenses and my goals. Such a newb!! 

but at least I tried.

But 6 months into this little budget experiment of mine, I slowly grew wiser. The jars were calling my name.

What are these jars?   Well I had been voraciously watching every episode of Gail Vaz-Oxlade's Til Debt Do Us Part. Part of her way of helping people was calculating variable expenses and putting them in jars for people to SEE how much they had (or didn't have) for the week.

The sheer simplicity of it was genius.

Here was her premise of what to do. THE JARS


My original amounts were higher than what I have now, but I don't seem to have them written down in the blog.  I had five categories back then: Gas, Entertainment, Grocery and household items, spending money and Clothing and Gifts.

Since then my dollar amounts and how I handle them have evolved slightly. Here are two instances where I actually wrote the amounts down.

June 2010

1) Food and Household - $680 a month ($170 a week)
2) Spending Money - $80 a month ($20 a week)
3) Gas/Transportation - $200 a month ($50 a week)
4) Entertainment - $160 a month ($40 a week)
5) Clothing and Gifts - $100 a month ($25 a week)

And

August 2014
Gas - $60 a week
Entertainment - $40 a week
Spending money - $20 a week
Grocery and house hold items - $220 a week

I know when I first started I had amounts that required me to get bills other than $20s. That proved to be annoying as the machines didn't cooperate and it meant my going in to the brick and mortar. So I tweaked them not long after to reflect ATM cooperative 20s.


Over time...
I used to have my Clothing and Gifts in a jar but it proved to be easier to make this an invisible 'category' in my savings and just transfer it.

My gas money increased because gas prices kept soaring.

My entertainment money was cut in half. I wasn't using it properly and that other $20 could go to a dif goal.

Grocery went down to $180 when DS1 left and I reallocated that $40 a week towards money I was transferring to him.

I found this great post in 2009 that talked about how the first month of jars went. It was interesting to go back and read it after all these years.


I have to say, I have started and stopped a ton of 'new routines' for diet, exercise, money, housekeeping...you name it. The jars is the ONLY thing that has had this longevity.

If you are thinking of starting a system to help you save, or get out of debt, DO. Whether it's jars or envelopes or online tracking. Whatever works for you. Just start! Know that adjusting your amounts or how you do it is NOT a failure. It's showing you are learning from the experience.

Just start.

A year of change

I continue to believe in the power of change...the rattling money kind, that is.

(I seem to be typing this with one hand, as my maine coone cat insists this is her snuggle time)

It goes in a jar and once a month I count it, and roll it, if there enough of any kind. Then off to the bank I go and put it towards debt, or a savings goal.

Last year my total rolled change was $512.

Not bad for a year of rolling. Not my highest amount either though. Just shows how much I use cash, and if I keep, or spend, the change.

This year, it felt like a lot of months didn't have enough to roll.

January - $0
February - $80
March - $0
April - $100
May - $20
June - $85
July - $92
August - $150
September - $0
October - $0
November - $30
December - $85

So the grand total for the year is $642

More than I thought, actually.

This money generally went to mini goals or debt repayment.

I haven't yet decided if I will put all my change towards a specific goal, or just allocate it month by month, because sh&t happens.

In theory, I COULD decide that the change goes towards "Back to School" as it would get me at least halfway towards that goal by August 1.  Hmmm something to think about.

Grocery/household budget

When DS1 left last fall, I took $40 out of our grocery/household budget to reallocate to his college budget. There were weeks when we noticed that $40 was gone and weeks where it was less noticeable.

Now with DS2 gone, in THEORY, we should need less for the budget again.  I have DS2's budget already set. If we are only feeding two people, there should be a bit of surplus.   I haven't really noticed it yet but it's early.

Over the summer, I debated how I wanted to tweak the budget or IF I wanted to tweak it.

I remembered that last Christmas I found myself on a big shopping trip before DS1 came home from the States, and that I wanted to tuck some money away so I was ready for that purchase.  I decided I wanted to save $200 towards extra Christmas food shopping.

So, here is what I think I am going to do. When I take out my weekly jar allowance, I will automatically put $20 of it in a Christmas jar. 10 weeks of this and I will have my extra money.

IF there happens to be money left at the end of each week in this jar, that will become my snowflakes for the LOC.

So new mini goal: $200 extra dollars for Christmas.


It's a rainy, dreary day here. Homemade stew being created and bread in the bread machine.

Long weekend wrap up

It's been a very peaceful long weekend for me, complete with a bonus day of today.

I didn't hit the lake like DH and DS or like most of my friends and staff, but I feel like I got things done, and relaxed too.

Eating out of pantry and freezer: success

I found lots of little bits, which I paired with rice or a little bit of salad (colitis still has a hate on for veggies and fruits) and I didn't feel deprived. Friday night I used frozen ground beef and made a little taco salad for myself ( ok mostly meat and cheese and such, so I use the word 'salad' loosely). Saturday I had poached eggs on toast for lunch. I found some turkey chili in the freezer and some of my mom's home made buns, so supper was good to go.  Sunday morning I made myself a couple pancakes and paired it with a few strawberries. Sunday lunch I had a bowl of turkey noodle soup from some containers in the fridge freezer. For supper I found some M and M meatshop pulled pork, and put that with some coleslaw and another of my mom's buns.   Cost out of pocket for all this? $0

School work: success

But I say that with the caveat that it is never finished. I put in 3 hours on Saturday, 3 hours on Sunday and 5 hours today marking projects and exams. No prep work got done and there is still a pile of marking, but I feel good about what was done. Most people take their marking home now to do, but I just am so much more successful going to the school, spreading out without TV (or nap) distractions, and being able to sort and tidy and search while I work, instead of hauling home tons of things, only to find I am missing stuff.

Free to a good home: busted

I had put a few things out on the edge of the lawn that wouldn't be worth anything to put up on a buy and sell page, but that we had no need of anymore and were just sitting in the garage taking up space.  DH came home to find one large piece of luggage still there. Mine. He got mad and hauled it back in. I didn't tell him about the other things. They were all mine and none of them were gifts from him, but it still would have ticked him off. He would rather hoard things and not use them, ever, and complain about them being in the way.

House cleaning: success

Like school work, it's never done, but many of those little things got checked off the list. Probably nothing anyone else would ever notice, but I do. So there.

Walking: fail

It just was not colitis safe, unless I didn't eat or drink anything for hours before I wanted to go.

Summer college tuition: fail

I went to the bank Saturday to get the draft to send down to the States. They have (again) changed how they do US drafts, and it has to be done 'upstairs'. Of course, "upstairs' is not open on the weekend so I have to go back tomorrow after work.


Errands: success

I returned a book, two magazines and a CSI New York DVD to the library (curse you sad Canadian version of Netflix which has so few choices).  The book and magazines appeased my need to want to buy something new.

I went to the bank to get my Week 4 jar money.

I filled up on gas for the week. I didn't use much last week so I didn't need much, even with the jump in the prices. My weekly budget is $60 and in the winter, I use that much.  I got away with $25 needed to fill up. $15 went into my 'gas' wallet. I save bits here and there to go towards  oil changes or extra gas money should I want to go out of  town and need more $. The remaining $20 went into my 'snowflake goal' wallet, which brings my total thus far to $70/$200

I went to Walmart to pick up a few things. I used $80 of my weekly $180. Half of it went towards household things like laundry soap, toilet paper, kleenex and catfood.


Fresh air time: success

I got the lawn cut. I sat outside and enjoyed sunshine and breeze. It was chilly and windy here but there were patches of good moments. It frozen each night here - to give you an idea of how chilly.

So today while I was at work, DH tried to fix our laminate flooring. It was starting to separate at some of the seams. Quite a bit. He spent four hours trying to do four boards. I am glad I wasn't here to witness it :-)  I still have crap laying in my hallway, not put away from his handiwork.

Supper was just the two of us. Home made BBQ burgers and Caesar salad. Tres simple. I had four questionable apples in the fridge that I turned into an apple crisp. My I do love the smell of apple crisp baking in the oven. Can someone tell me why I have FOUR jars of cinnamon?? sheesh

Now I am just puttering with dishes while the hockey game is on. When the dishes are done, it will be time to enjoy THIS:

Not all of it. Just a glass :-)

Finding $180

I went to the bank this past weekend and put down the monthly amount I have budgeted towards the College LOC.  When I got home I dutifully opened up my spreadsheet and wrote that amount in.

Some quick math told me that at the end of May when I apply the monthly amount again, I am $180 away from bringing the total down under the next 'thousand'.  Now we all know there is not much of a difference between buying something at $9.99 or at $10.00, but psychologically, that $9.99 just feels so much better :-)   I find it's the same thing with my mortgage or my LOC.

So the quest for the rest of this month is to 'find' $180 so that I can make that possible.

Now I could take $180 out of my backpay and make it happen. Or I could take it out of my tax return when it comes. Or I could reduce the amount I tuck away each month for the boys for College, or my next savings goal....well you get the idea.

I don't want to do that.

Rather, I want to challenge myself to find that money to make it happen. I need that mental mind game to be a catalyst to getting that balance down, like I did with my vehicle loan or previous LOC amounts.

If  I don't touch those amounts, then the only spot I can really make this happen is in my variable spending aka The Jars, and any change I may acquire.

Gas. Groceries. Entertainment. Spending.

I have 3 weeks to do it before next pay period.

The whole thing may go out the window with a murphy visit. DS1 is also taking spring session at College while he is down there for spring training and I have no idea what that is going to cost. Money may end up GOING  on the loc.  He also has to move out of his dorm and into the house he and his fellow freshman are renting. That is all new territory for me and I have no clue about potential costs.

So all of these well laid plans could change and be moot.

But for right now I am living in the spirit of optimism and will hope for the best.

To start this off, I had $30 left from groceries last week and $10 left from spending money, so I have $40 in the kitty.

 $140 to go

Saving money while sick

Being down and out for a month (really out for 2 weeks) has definitely shown itself in my weekly variable expenses.

Gas - I filled my vehicle yesterday. I honestly can't remember the last time I filled up. At least 3 weeks ago. I usually fill up once a week to 10 days. Not driving sure saves on fuel :-)  I put one weeks' worth of the extra gas money in the jar to save for road trips and the other I funnelled to DS2 for spending money for their day in Toronto.

Groceries- Well with me not really being able to eat, and DS2 gone, we didn't go through a lot for groceries. There was a lot of eat from the freezer for DH. Pieces of  one week's grocery money went for  DS2's luggage and travel thingies. Week 2's bits and pieces went towards a dress for DS2's grad. It hasn't arrived yet. We shall see if I like it when it gets here.

Water usage - Up and down. DS2 being gone saved us on his 'why doesn't he understand he can't shower that long' use. Of course I was flushing a ridiculous amount so some of that balanced out.

Meds - I had many dif meds we had to pay the dispensing fees on ($5 each under my plan). Much better than the hundreds the meds actually cost, but probably $50 on dispensing fees instead of $5 for the month


I also burned a lot of candle votives. I had bought a bunch of partylite  for $10 from a friend at her garage sale last spring and I actually found the box of them in the garage. I decided if I had to be at home in bed or on the couch, these little guys could be my splurge. I wanted it to represent the hope that I would get better and would have a chance at a normal life again.  I burned all the scents I didn't like first, to get rid of them :-)

Changing my jar amounts

Yes after 6 years I still use my jars, inspired by Gail Vaz Oxlade.  Not 100% all the time, but they help guide and keep me focused each week. I would not, I repeat, I WOULD NOT, have had any of the successes I have had in debt repayment or planned spending or savings, if I had not started using them.

At any rate, I have changed my jar amounts a few times over the years. I tried to find some specific numbers on my 'money jar' tags, but there were 44 entries. Not enough time this morning to go through them all.

My last change was August-ish when I cut money out of the grocery budget to repurpose towards DS1's college groceries. That shift brought my budget down to $300 a week.

Now I decided to cut out $20/ week from my $40 / week entertainment budget. This gives me a net save of $80 a month.

My entertainment money went into it's little jar. I never had a real purpose or savings goal for it.  I don't go to concerts. We don't really go on holidays. We don't go to fancy restaurants. So really the money just sat there and I would end up pulling it out for pizza or something like that. Not a really special use of the money.

Funny how I can not touch other pots of money, but that money trickles away.

Anyways, I needed to 'find' another $59 per month to make up for the net income reduction that occurred this year due to higher deductions.

I waffled on the 'where' and this is where I decided. If I change my mind, then I will retweak it and make it work.

The additional $21 not needed to make up the reduction went to my savings goals.

A Year of Change

Just take it to the bank and put it in one of those machines and it will count it for you!  I often hear that, but honestly, I just love that feeling of watching the change in my jar grow, then dumping it out, sorting it and rolling it up.  I am definitely weird, but I am ok with that.

I haven't added up my yearly change as I am typing this. My gut tells me that it is lower than in the past. I think I recall a couple months where there wasn't even enough of any one kind to roll anything to take to the bank.

Last year's total was $980.  I suspect this year is much less. Let's head to the month by month as I rummage through my blog history to see if I am correct.


January -$45
February - $80
March - $40
April - $0 recorded
May - $15
June - $75
July - $50
August - $50
September - $100
October - $57
November - $0 recorded
December - $100

For a grand total for 2014 of $512

ouch. I hate it when my gut is right. That  was a lot less. This tells me I used my debit card a lot more and actual cash a lot less. And if I was using my debit card, I probably was spending more of the budget line.  All things within my control to change.(no pun intended)