January 08 Totals

0 - Credit cards
0 - Car
27244 - Student loans

27244 - Total Debt

3707 - Emergency Fund
5345 - 401K

9052 - Total Savings

The house two doors down for us went up for sale recently! And sold super fast, before I could even think about wanting to buy it. But it made me think about having more cash on hand for such an occasion, should another property that seems right come up for sale, and I reduced my loan payments this month to beef up my EF a bit. I am lucky to live in an area that wants young people to buy houses here so badly that apparently, as friends who have bought houses tell me, you can get a house with no money down, and even finance the closing costs. Not that I necessary want to do that, but I'll be continuing to add to my EF as aggressively as possible.

Right now my EF is in ING and it's a mix of their standard Orange Savings at 4.1% and short-term CDs at 4.7%. All told, it is earning about $14 a month or $170 a year. Not bad! Nothing I could live on, but it's getting somewhere!

And I still hope to get somewhere this year, somewhere far, far, away, across an ocean, so lots of that $$ will go away and I am trying to make sure that I have some left over too for, well, emergencies!