And now, a PF Post

It’s not that I’ve purposely been slacking off on posting. It’s just not much has been going on here. I don’t want to make boring observations on how the weather is or how I wish people would move on from the whole Brett Favre thing. But with month-end just about past me once again, I find myself with some free time and brain space that I can dedicate to something other than inventory valuations. I also find myself trying to sort out the mess the computer area becomes at the end of the month when I really have neither the time nor the inclination to file things or update the MS Money files.

In strictly financial terms, February was a relatively good month. Not only was it a short month that had 3 pay periods for Adam, we also got both our federal and state refunds along with Adam’s bonus from his previous quarter’s accomplishments. This resulted in income of 175% of our normal (budgeted) salaries. Woo. This allowed for a generous credit card payment and a good chunk was also funneled into our ING account. The rest became some padding our checking account pretty much for my own peace of mind.

I was updating my net worth numbers earlier this afternoon (I can almost wipe out the car loan! Three days!) and out of curiosity (and partially because Bank of American upped our credit limit again) I calculated my utilization rate. Not only was I a little surprised by my total available credit (which includes my personal cards and our joint cards which are really in my name with Adam as an authorized user,) but I was relieved that my overall utilization is just over 30%. This is still kind of crappy, as “They” recommend that you hover in the 10-15% range, but I can deal with it for now. It’s a little uneven in its distribution in that two of my six cards hold 95% of the debt and have utilization percentages of 41% and 74%. I wonder if that makes a difference in my credit score calculations or if they just look at the big picture… Not that it really matters too much right now. I don’t plan any large purchases in the foreseeable future. My next move might be to find a better joint credit card since our Bank of America one, while having an appealing interest rate, sucks in the rewards department. Plus once we pay off the outstanding balances, I don’t plan to carry balances on cards that will accrue interest, so the interest rate doesn’t really matter too much. My Chase Rewards card has decent cash-back rebates but the APR is something ridiculous like 21.99%.

Anywho, for the personal finance junkies among you, some insight into our finances. For everyone else, you’re snoring and you drooled on your keyboard.