Saturday Debt Dates

J and I go out on a "Debt Date" almost every Saturday night. We go out to eat ($25 or less) and get our grocery shopping ($100 or less) done for the upcoming week. Sometimes we throw in a movie or other activity. But, for the most part, it is a chance for us to catch up on the events of the past week and go over the budget for the next week. It's a great way to reinforce our budget plans (and to secretly keep J on board). I find that doing a zero based budget helps a lot. AND, I find that if I do all of my errands on Saturday (groceries for the week, fill up the gas tanks in both cars, etc), I don't have any reason to spend money during the next week. That helps the budget immensely. A zero based budget is assigning each dollar into a category so you have no excuse to waste any left over money. By doing this, we spend our money wisely, and we have leftover money at the end of the month to apply to our debt. Here are the categories we use in our budget each week.

10% Tithing
Bills
Groceries
Gas (one tank for each of us, helps us manage where we go)
Debt Date
Savings
Carry over to Debt
Misc (unexpected things)

I'd love to hear how you budget!! Please share what works for you!!!

P.S. We set aside $500 for our Disney Hotel budget. BUT, thanks to Priceline, we just scored a 3.5 star, brand new hotel, down the street from Disneyland, for $25 a night for a total of $180 for 6 nights. WOO HOO!!!!!