One good thing

If nothing else good comes from my working at the Met for the past two seasons, there will be this: I am now out of credit card debt.

Thanks to SBF’s leading by example, I’ve been aggressively reshaping my financial situation over the past few months. I realized two months ago that with a bit of shifting of funds from one account to another, I could wipe out my credit card debt and a) still have enough money in my checking account to avoid the “emergency fallback” credit card trap and b) keep at least one month’s expenses in my emergency fund. When I saw the new numbers on my online bank statement this evening, I have to admit that I teared up a bit.

I did it!!! It feels great. And... I already bought myself a reward, paid in full.

Next steps:
* Build back up to three months in the emergency fund. Next season is a little light on the financial side (not currently contracted at the Met due to conflicting gigs elsewhere), so I may need some back-up.
Take the money I was putting to my CC towards student loan payment.
Make maximum contributions to my IRA.
Put 20% of each paycheck into a special savings account for taxes. This year I got a big refund (also thanks to the Met: I was a W-2 employee there), which will never happen again. I don’t want to be caught unprepared for taxes next year like I was for TY2006.

More on the blogging slump, now extending into May. Today, as I was sitting in a blissfully happy post-brunch daze, someone used the expression “fat, dumb, and happy.” I’m not getting fat, but maybe my current happiness has rendered me a bit less capable of stringing together coherent sentences...

Stay tuned. Or not...