Snowflaking, sort of

I've probably said it too many times, but Wes and I aren't the most frugal of people. We are doing better, and every step in the right direction counts in the end. But we still have a long long way to go.

I've begun a little experiment. No matter what our other spending habits, whenever a bill or expenditure is less than planned, I snowflake the difference. If the gas bill is $140 and we budgeted $150, I'm sending that $10.00 snowflake, even if the electric bill was budgeted at $150 and really came in at $180.

So far, I don't notice a difference at all. We haven't come up short in other areas and this has been fairly painless. Since my experiment with tracking my expenses every single day failed miserably, I've decided that this approach may work better. We spend if it's there, but really tighten our belts when it isn't.

Anyone have advice on this? What other ways do you throw little bits at your debts without feeling the pain?