Another week done, another progress update on my Money Jar experiment. I’m doing pretty well, reducing my spending nicely. I’m still going over on a couple of the categories, which means I’ve got to adjust them slightly in order to make sure I’m spending less. Before you tell me “oh sure, budgets work when you play with the numbers all the time”, remember that budgets, especially when you’re first starting with them, do need rejigging and juggling to make them “right”.  I’ve been cutting down on my spending, which is the first major step, and making better choices when I do spend money.

One of the categories where I’ve been spending more is in food. Most of you know that with the strange economic times we’re having right now, the prices of things have gone up. So my food is costing me more money every week. I’ve actually tightened my belt quite a bit on the food, so that while I’m not eating mac & cheese every night, I’m eating much, much more simply (but still healthy), which has helped cut down on my food bill. I’m using coupons and specials, and trying to finish off what’s in my cupboard before buying more food. It’s actually going quite well, and surprisingly, I’m not sick of the food I’m eating.

For once I’m actually spending less on transportation costs, because the price of gas has been going down over the last few days. I actually broke my one “rule” by filling up when the price went down over the last week. I ended up filling up three times when only at about half a tank, but since it’s been a while since the price was below $1 a Litre in quite some time, I thought I’d take advantage. It’s not like I won’t use the gas!

I’m pretty pleased at how things have been going so far. I haven’t felt like I’ve been depriving myself of anything, and have a bit more money to throw at my debt. I’ll be posting new debt numbers next week (at the end of the month), so let’s see if it made a difference at all.

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