On Finances...

Both our federal and state refunds were directly deposited this morning. Yay for e-filing! This will allow us to pay down a bit on the credit cards. Adam expects to be getting his bonus from the previous quarter within the next two paychecks so that will help as well. With so many variables I don’t know if it’s realistic, but it looks as though perhaps we can have everything paid off by next June. And that’s without including any additional bonuses Adam might get for the rest of the year. Taking that possibility into account might allow us to be done with it all by the end of the year. We’ll see. Aah, to be debt-free…

Then it will be time to start building up our savings both as emergency funds and home improvement funds. Adam’s already got a list of things he wants to do to the house and while we will have the Lowe’s card available, I’d rather accumulate the money before-hand this time. Jumping into home ownership a year earlier than anticipated kind of threw my financial planning all out of whack, but it’s starting to right itself again. And in my mind there’s a number. It’s the number I’d need to see us have in savings before I’d even consider diving into other life-changing events, if you get my drift. I know if it came down to it, there are a lot of areas where we could slash spending to come up with extra money. But I’d rather take the logical approach and try to prepare for the financial havoc that comes with LCEs. We’re in no hurry. Or at least I’m not. Plus, I need to work on my physical self a little before I get to that. And on a more morbid note, we also have to kind of wait for some rodent friends to start kicking it so we have more room… Heh.

Back on the bright side, in 19 days I will make my final car payment and the Toyota will be mine! Yay! Three years seemed to fly by and it still runs just fine. I did have to replace the battery a few weeks ago but I think that the cold weather may have had something to do with it. Other than routine maintenance and a serpentine belt replacement, it’s been a hassle-free car. Here’s to at least another 3 hassle-free years!

Anyway, enough of that. I’m off to hunt for a decent M&M cookie recipe that I can try this weekend. The one on the M&Ms site totally sucked so I need to find something else.