February 08 Totals

0 - Credit cards
0 - Car
26284 - Student loans

26284 - Total Debt

4070 - Emergency Fund
6150 - 401K

10220 - Total Savings

Feeling good about things.

Still need to do my taxes for this year. Think I will get a refund (though not counting on it for anything). I did a quick calculation with an online tool and was at about $800. We'll see.

My plans for the year as detailed in the last entry haven't really taken any additional pay into account. I don't like to base plans on things that haven't happened yet. However, with a tax refund, as well as the bonus I will be getting (part on March 14 and the rest in April) I would put 50% of those toward my loans and the other 50% in my EF. I may get a COL raise of 3% or so this spring and would likely put that into the EF too.

You may have noticed that I have a liberal definition of "Emergency Fund." Basically it's everything in my ING account, so pretty liquid, though not immediately accessible, and earning interest. I keep money in there a bit to think about what I'll do with it before doing something like taking a trip or making an extra loan payment. Having had some lean years growing up, it's really an enormous comfort to know that some money is there if I need it.

Getting a Roth IRA is probably a good idea at some point too...hm.

I honestly can't believe that I started this blog two whole years ago. I was just thinking about the beginning, and for a minute, I couldn't remember if it was '06 or '07 that I began. It does sound a little crazy for me to say that I am hoping to pay as much debt as I did in the third year of this journey as I did in the first two combined. But those who know me know that I can be kind of crazy, and have mad stamina!