Tell All Tuesday - Emergency Fund Rising
Things are finally feeling like they are back on track and moving forward. I do best when I have concrete goals and I can make continual incremental progress towards them, and I feel like I finally set things up to do so again. Just holding the car repair money in my checking account wasn’t quite working for me, so I transferred it to my emergency savings along with any other snowflake money I still had left. Once I get the statement to pay (still hasn’t arrived, starting to get a bit anxious about it and will call them this week if it doesn’t show up) I can transfer the money back into my checking account and pay it. I tried to create an online account just so I could see my statement and the program won’t let me without a billing statement (even though I have my account number). Argh… such backwards technology.
Okay so the exciting numbers:
Debt at start of blog (6/19/07) : $36,451.71
Current total as of 02/12/08: $27,111.06
Principal paid to date $10,140.65
Broken down into:
- Auto Repair: $800 (new as of 01/11/08)
- Credit Card: PAID OFF 2/7/08
- Student loan: $11,636.71 (paid minimum payment this week)
- Spouse student loan: $11,537.66 (paid minimum payment this week)
- Car loan: $3136.69
% Debt Paid Off (from NCN Network Chart) : 25.63% (last update 24.56%)
Emergency fund balance: $1249.42 (includes $800 for car repair)
So, my total paid to principal has passed $10,000! Hurrah! I also paid off the credit card last week, which I’ve already talked about but it is still very exciting to me. Once the car repair is behind me I can fully concentrate on the emergency fund and move forward to the student loans. Yay! The % of debt paid from the NCN Network chart has also gone up past 25% again, and is higher than its last peak of 25.43%, so I feel like we’re back to where we were at the beginning of January and all progress is now moving forward instead of catching up.
The emergency fund balance is $1249.42, and $800 of that is designated to the car repair but the rest ($449.42) is solely to replenish the emergency fund. I received a $50 check from my parents for our anniversary as well as a $20 MySurvey payment this week, which both went into the emergency fund. I am hoping to get the emergency fund back up to $1000 with my tax return (which should be about $600, I e-filed them today so should have the refund back by the end of February) and any remainder I am going to start saving to pay to the spouse’s student loan. I’ve created a specific ING subaccount to save money to do that. We’re going to use it as a backup emergency fund and periodically transfer the money to the student loan. I’m still pondering the exact details but should have it figured out by next week’s Tell All Tuesday.
Onward and upward! The emergency fund is almost halfway to $1000 and the student loan has entered my sights! It doesn’t stand a chance. 
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February 12th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
That’s great. The emergency fund will be plump again before you know it.
The amount you’ve paid down is also quite impressive.
February 12th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’ve been reading your blog for the last 2 or 3 weeks and greatly enjoying it.
Just curious - why are you paying off the student loans before the car loan? And why your spouse’s loan first? Is his interest rate high for some reason? Seems like if you hit the car loan hard next it would be gone pretty quickly and then you could add that money on to the student loan payments.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
You’re doing great! Your CC debt is gone. That’s the big bad wolf. Are you planning on changing strategies a bit? Increasing your emergency fund? Or are you going to get aggressive with the student loans?
One interesting thing I learned about e-funds recently is the possibility of using your IRA as an e-fund. You can invest the money in an money market fund (basically a savings account), and use it for emergencies if they happen, or let use it as retirement savings if you don’t. Here are some links:
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2007/10/roth-ira-contribution-vs-emergency-fund-savings.html
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2007/10/can-i-really-withdraw-my-roth-ira-contributions-at-any-time-without-tax-or-penalty.html
February 12th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Car loan is at 4%, spouse student loan at 9% and my student loan at 7%. that’s why.
We’re older than all the youngins with really low student loan rates. Back when we got them the interest rates were much higher
February 13th, 2008 at 9:05 am
How about calling your lender for the car repair to get a payoff balance and an address to send the check to? Then you can pay it today, rather than waiting for the statement.
February 13th, 2008 at 9:19 am
There isn’t a phone number on the information that the bank issuing the line of credit sent with the card. Just a website. I thought I could register online and get a phone number that way, but then I was stymied registering because I needed information from the statement, not just the account number, and I have no statement.
it is all very circular. And irritating. If I don’t get a statement by the end of the week I am going to poke around the website more and see if I can find any phone numbers to call (there was no obvious contact us type thing). You’d think a semi-national bank would be less technology-stupid. Well, *I* would think that.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
You guys are doing really well. You guys may not be debt free but to be credit card free is a huge accomplishment.
My question is do you plan to build up the emergency fund to 3-6 months expenses before you start to really attack the student loans–or are you going to build up the emergency fund to 1K and then start attacking the student loans faster?
February 13th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
@SC - I still have to kind of figure that out.
What we’ve decided is to save money to overpay the student loans in a separate account that we would use as a backup emergency fund to our $1000 one. And every so often make a big overpayment to the student loans.
What we have to figure out is to what level we’d save before each overpayment. And when the overpayments would happen. For example, our A/C unit is much newer than our furnace, therefore, it’d probably be better to wait until spring to make an overpayment and clean out the backup emergency fund.
I do know though, the sooner the student loans are paid off, the less our monthly expenses are.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Has it been 30 days yet since you’ve set up the credit line for the car repair? If so, then you should have received a statement in the mail by now. I’d start being concerned if it doesn’t surface soon and definitely shake out another form of contact with the lender to get to the root of the matter of lack of statement.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I’ve been out of the loop for a while, so congrats on getting rid of the CC debt. That is the big bad wolf as someone else says. Yippee!! Keep up the good work, babe.