I’m extremely satisfied with the site’s ability to categorize my spending and show it in charts and graphs. You can’t move money or anything like that, it’s really just a way to track your spending and suggest ways to save more money. I’m guessing that’s how they make their money.

For example, if you click on the Ways to Save tab, they’ll show you what you are spending money on and other companies that can save you money or make you earn more. The site reminded me about one that I had forgotten was to change my savings to a max-rate checking to earn more interest on Etrade.

It’s not as powerful as Quicken or other financial software products, but it gets the job done for our household needs.

So about 4 months ago, we decided to give ourself a budget of $50 a week on dining out expenses. We used cash at the time and when we were out money, we were done for the week. This gave us the flexibility to spend on one good meal or fast food on the days we didn’t want to cook. When the week ended, we started back at $50 and did not roll over any money that was not previously spent.

We’ve continued to stick to the plan (vacations excluded though) with only a few changes. We felt like we were comfortable in using our banking card again, so we could verify and track the expenses. Before, we would just spend and spend and not really keep track of it.

We’ve also just started putting any money left over for the week into our savings. It seemed silly at first to transfer $12 bucks out of one account to another, but it’s free, so there’s really no reason we shouldn’t. By doing this, I’ve found myself saying, “If we don’t use all the money for the week it can go into savings,” a comment I wouldn’t really be known for before starting this.

So we’re still spending $200 a month. That looks like a lot, but it’s a reasonable and manageable way for us to start curbing our eating out expenses.