Ubuntu backup advice

hello lads
i,m using ubuntu 14.4
i,m ready to port all my configs etc for oscam from my miracle box server but i want to get the backing up correct just incase it goes wrong, ive tried thatfellows tut using acronis but it keeps failing so ive backed it up and restored it using clonezilla which has worked well but its a bit of a pain as it clones the whole disk and i just want to back up to usb stick and not a ext hdd, what methods are other ubuntu users using to backup? ive googled a few but some seem a bit out of my capabilitys, there must be a good gui based one out there somwhere
im using the cron script to back up my oscam configs every night, so if it did go pete tong i suppose it dont take long to re -install ubuntu i guess, does anyone else just do this method or does everyone do the full backup jobby