Eating out is my biggest monthly expense. I am always concerned as I could use that money to pay off debt. But as an older (wise) coworker remarked recently, going out to eat with my friends is part of my entertainment too.

Corollas are reliable, depending on age. After about 7 years, I question the reliability of any car.

I also have been unable to learn how to drive stick, which is the only thing keeping the two of us from going down to one car–HUGE budget savings, considering how often my so-called “reliable” Corolla keeps needing expensive repairs. That’s $500/month right there, easy. Well, easy if I could figure how not to stall out in the middle of traffic!

An emergency is not foreseeable. That’s the point of the emergency fund.

BTW, I’m very resistant to using my emergency fund for debt payment, too.

i’d love to have more clothes, at least for fall/winter. i keep shopping the clearance section and buy tops that really more suitable for spring/summer. that’s my weakness and i’ve been buying and returning too much lately. so i made a list of what i really need and will go look for more winter clothes.

you should pay off your credit cards with your emergency fund. there aren’t any emergencies i can think of where you can’t use a credit card.

if you don’t pay off your credit cards, you’ll never get ahead of the curve.

A few co-workers and I tried to figure out what was the best value.

Our answer? Crab rangoon. You can get like, 10 for a pound.

Won’t feel too good after that lunch, though.

The ONLY problems with that “ideal” strategy are
a) if you fib to yourself and start charging things to the CC as “emergency” items when they’re not. (ps. If you budget properly most “emergencies” go away eg. an unexpected large bill, a sudden car repair, dental bill etc – all these should be part of your budget and accrued for).
b) you let the balance build up again on the CC you paid down using your “emergency fund” money (ie. spend more than you earn). Your CC debt balance should be slowly decreasing if you are living within your means. If you paid CC balance off the remaining balance should then go down even faster as you have less interest being added to the balance each month.

Locking your “emergency fund” money away in a CD isn’t really a solution – it’s just avoiding the real issue of having a bit of a spending problem that needs addressing. It’s a bit like cutting up all your CCs once they are paid off. Instead you should learn how to use CCs properly once they’re paid off (ie. get one with no annual fee, and interest free period on purchases if you pay off the balance in full each month, and a free rewards/rebate program).

As you have already taken out the 12 month CD, I’d concentrate on living within your means for the next 12 mo, and paying off as much of the CC balance as possible (set yourself a monthly CC balance reduction target). At the end of 12mo you can then use the CD money to pay off the CC balance and be confident that you won’t start spending extra on your CC just because you have some credit available.

Regards
http://enoughwealth.com

ps. Firefox is a good browser, but lots of folks still use IE. Having a feature that doesn’t display properly in IE is NOT the same as being “Firefox optimized”. You should be able to get things to display almost identically in both browsers if you code it properly.

(No, it’s really the way the layout is coded, but I can’t seem to figure out the problem with IE. And I never use IE. Long story.)

It is a MFC ChatBox. Is it your site or me?

Thanks
D