Well, we haven't been updating but we have been chugging along.

Our emergency fund was sitting at about $600 after a small "Christmas money" addition in January.

Updated our month-end numbers for January (albeit a bit late), and no big surprises there. Total debt decreased by $332.42 (much better than last month), and total investments increased by $267.95 (not as good as last month). So that makes our "net" improvement about $600.37. Like I've said before, not bad for us!

I look forward to posting month-end numbers for February, for several reasons. The biggest one... we have finally completed Dave Ramsey's Baby Step #1... $1,000 in our Emergency Fund! YAY!!!

We have received the money from our federal & one state tax (lived in two states in 2009). Took $400 of it and added it to our EF, making it right at $1,000. Now I can allow myself to continue reading Dave's Total Money Makeover. (I had stopped right after the Emergency Fund chapter, waiting until we had completed it to continue.)

I know the next steps involve paying off debt using the snowball technique. I look forward to learning more about it, but have already started that process. We used more of our return money to pay off DH's only credit card, because it had the smallest balance of our 4 household cards. So that is about $348 paid. YAY!!!

The 3 remaining cards are all in my name. I know the debt snowball calls for us to pay them off starting with the smallest balance. BUT, the smallest balance is on my Discover card. It has the lowest interest rate and is relatively easy to manage (no fee for paying online or over the phone, for instance). The other two cards have similar balances (both over $10k, shew), but one has lower interest, no fees to pay online. The third card is the bane of my existence.

Even when I get it paid off, I probably won't close it (immediately) because it's my oldest credit account. But, I haven't used it in almost a year, mostly because we haven't been charging anything, and also because it is a pain in the behind to keep up with.

Basically, I have to use a check to pay it, or pay $9 in "service fees" for paying online or over the phone. If I need to pay over the phone, it takes literally 10 minutes just to get through all the automated menus. Online is simpler, but still costs me $9. At this point, we have had to take the $9 hit the last two months, while switching bank accounts, changing my name, and ordering checks for the new account. Hopefully, we will have a check to mail them next month and they can stick that $9 fee where the sun doesn't shine.

ANYWAY... this card also has the highest interest rate (go figure). It is significantly higher than the others. For these reasons, I am choosing to pay off this card first.

With that said, the minimum payment was $277 this month. I paid $999.99 using some refund money, which is the highest amount it will let me do paying online (another disadvantage of that stupid thing). I had another $300 that I wanted to pay on it, so I transferred that $300 to our savings account until next month.

Also paid the minimums on the other two cards.

So, there we are. That takes care of most of our refund money, except the smaller amount I've left in our old checking account as a buffer until we get everything switched over to the new one. We just took a mini-vacation for 3 days, which cost about $400 total. We had a blast, spent some quality time together, and both got a little fun & relaxation in before spring, when both of our jobs will get crazy.

I hope our February month-end numbers reflect the changes we've been trying to make financially. We'll see!