The Jar: A debt relief reward system

So when my boyfriend and I first bought our house, we had an old pickle jar out on the counter where we threw any coins that we had in our pockets at the end of the day.  Our initial idea was to take the jar down to the bank each month and add what ever 'extra' money we collected to our monthly mortgage check.  I had read somewhere that something as small as adding an extra quarter to your mortgage check each month could potential take years off your loan. 
Our intentions were good, and we did collect about a half a jars worth of coins that first month, but we just never got around to going to the bank with them.  So we said we would keep collecting and go to the bank the next month.  Well that didn't happen either.  Pretty soon we filled our little pickle jar.  As the jar was filled with just pennies, it really didn't seem possible that we had accumulated that much money.  So we decided to just continue collecting.  I brought home one of those 5 gallon water jugs from our break room at work and we set a new goal.  We decided when we fill this jug, we will take the money down to the bank and cash it in.  However, we decided we're going to use whatever money is in there for ourselves instead.  We arnt putting a label on it right now, but we're going to reward ourselves with it.  Maybe we'll use it towards buying a new TV, or towards a little weekend trip away or something.  What ever we use it for, it'll be almost like a free gift, because it's not like we're missing the money that's piling up inside our jug.  We're not painstakingly pinching pennies, we're just tossing our change into the jar, rather than having it float around cars and jacket pockets and purses. 
I can see the question forming in your mind though.  Why not put the 'extra' money towards our debt?  If you don't miss it, it's the best money in the world to put towards the mortgage our your college loan.  But we decided this made more sense.  Why?  The answer is simple.

When you're constantly saving and trying to pay things off, you forgo a lot of things.  I wore broken shoes for two months, simply because I couldn't justify spending the money on myself to get new ones.  We pass up eating out, going to movies, buying our favorite snacks, because they're all things we don't 'need'.  But it's hard to live like that.  It's hard to constantly deny yourself things.  It's especially hard to deny yourself things for long term causes, like paying off debt.  This is harder because you don't see the benefits of your sacrifices right away.  It can seem like you're doing all this going without for no reason, and sometimes this can cause people to give up on their goals.  So this jar is now our reward system.  We wont feel guilty about spending the extra money on ourselves, because we earned it.  We were patient and (hopefully) put a good dent in our debt and we deserve a reward, however we wont be spending money that we'll miss.  It'll be the extra money that in a way, we didn't even know we had. 

If you're trying to free yourself of any kind of debt, be it credit cards, college loans, car loans or mortgages, I suggest setting up a jar system.  If you arnt as patient as me and my boyfriend are, use a smaller jar and use the money to go out to see a movie, or something less expensive that you can earn your way towards more often.  You'll be amazed at how something so small can make an impact on how you feel about your progress towards your debt relief.