Weather Report

I had mentioned a couple of months ago that things were going topsy-turvy in the school district where my wife and I work, and that because we weren't even sure we'd have jobs next year, we were going in to duck-and-cover mode.  We refinanced our mortgage, bolstered our rainy day account, and held off on debt payments for a while.

I'm happy to say that it looks like those storm clouds on the horizon blew past us, and we're in the clear, at least for now.  There are a few things still up in the air, but they're just details and don't change the fact that my wife and I should both be gainfully employed, at least for another year.

That being said, here's where our financial picture stands, and what our plans for the coming months are:

• Our Rainy Day account stands at just under $6,000.  When our next CD matures in a few weeks, we'll be over $6,000, which is between two and three months of living expenses for us.  The only reason we're not going to increase it is that our income comes from so many sources, the odds of all of our income disappearing is slim.
• Our mortgage is refinanced at 3.75%, and we've already paid off $500 in principal, even though our first payment on this new loan isn't due until May 5.
• Our student loan has become our top priority, not because its interest rate is higher, but because it's significantly smaller, so much so that we can have it paid off -- with a little luck -- in December of this year.  Expect to see that number dropping rapidly.  

Thanks to the miracle of online payments, I expect that we'll have money pretty much constantly flying through cyberspace en route to some account or other, or to pay down some loan or other.  We just paid off almost $700 in principal on the student loan earlier this week, and I just made another payment for about $160.  Turn-around time on payments there is about 2 to 3 days.  The mortgage is even faster -- if I make a payment from one of our accounts at ING Direct, the payment appears to apply instantaneously.  Compared to the wait with our former mortgage company (where it could take a week or more for them to get the money and then apply it correctly), it's a God-send.

For those of you who have been patiently waiting to see our loan numbers drop, I share your pain.  I can only say that those numbers should be dropping frequently in the coming weeks, so check back often.  As always, leave your comments and questions in the section below -- they're always appreciated!

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I'm a couple days late in posting this, but I did want to let you all know that my wife and I closed on our refinance with ING Direct last Thursday. They haven't paid off the old loan yet, and there's nothing about the new loan up in our account at ING Direct, but the whole shebang's a done deal.

What this means now is that it will be easier than ever for us to pay extra against this loan, since most of the money for doing that will come from our checking account at ING -- no more mucking about with and waiting for electronic payments to go from one company to the next. It also means that we have that much extra every month (if you ignore escrow, about $200) that we don't need to have to make our regular mortgage payments. It's like having an extra rainy day account of a sort -- the less we need to be able to pay every month, the longer before we get into real financial trouble if the unforeseen happens (which, by its very definition, we can't know about until it's happened).

Speaking of the unforeseen, we should find out this week if our jobs are secure for next year, of if the proverbial apple cart will be upset. That will have a huge bearing on whether our extra monies go toward our rainy day account, our mortgage, or our student loans. We'll keep you posted on that.

In the meantime, if you haven't checked out the excerpt of my novel in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, I invite you to go here to check it out. A little light reading to pass the time until our debt numbers at the right start dropping once more....