Personal Finance Challenge: Snowflaking

Alright, so for those of you that have been with me for awhile you know that on Sunday's I normally do  "Spending Diary" from the previous week to keep me honest with my money. I realized though that each week was a lot of the same. I've done a pretty good job of reining in my casual spending so my day-to-day is well, boring. In an attempt to keep things interesting I've decided to make myself a personal finance guinea pig. Each month I'm am going to try a different personal finance method for debt repayment, saving, etc. Think of it as "Mythbusters" for personal finance.

Last month when I went to all cash was really my first crack at it minus the spiffy "Personal Finance Challenge" header. This month I'm taking a stab at "snowflaking".

Snowflaking can be used to both pay off debt and save money. The idea is taking small sums of money and contributing to your goal to help you reach it faster. My goal is to pay off the $6500 in credit card debt that has been haunting me since college so any "snowflakes" I have at the end of the month will be going towards the card.

Here is what I did:

First, I identified my variable expenses. These are ones that change every month. I have a lot of expenses, but most are fixed so I was able to narrow it down to only a few.

Next, I estimated how much I thought I would spend throughout the month of September. I based my estimates off of past spending for gas, food, clothes, and misc. For textbooks I took a wild stab in the dark and just assumed they would be ridiculously expensive... because they always are for business.

Now, I just do my thing and hope that I have some snowflakes to contribute to my credit card at the end of the month.

If you have any Personal Finance challenges for me, or would like to submit your own experience e-mail me at grace.croshaw@gmail.com