Earlier this year, a friend of mine posted a fantastic idea on Facebook. Her husband was deployed in active duty to the military and she was having problems explaining to her kid when daddy was going to be back home. I’ll give you a moment to grab a tissue while you take that in….

The idea she came up with – grab two jars, and fill one with little plastic army men. One per day until her husband came home. Every day, they move one plastic green soldier from one jar to the other. When the first jar is empty, and the previously empty jar is full – it’s time for the family to be together again!

This got me thinking – you could use the same idea to track almost anything! Just get two jars, fill one up and move things as you make progress. Early this year, we got our mortgage under $60,000. I found out after buying two mason jars that the jars are just about the right size for 600 pennies. So each penny represents $100 of our mortgage.

Here is what it looked like when we started using the jars for tracking our goals.