Emergency Fund: First, I have decided to change the amount of money saved in my emergency fund. While I was originally aiming for $10,000, I now feel as though $8000 is a reasonable enough amount on which my wife and I could live for at least several months should both of us be out of work. However, I feel very secure in my job, and when my wife starts working again it seems fairly unlikely we would both be out of work at once. Also, if worse comes to worse we have two wonderfully supportive families who could help out, though I doubt it would come to that.

Unfortunately, the actual amount in my emergency fund has not changed for the past few months. First, we had to pay $270 to fill 1/3rd of our oil tank. No, this should normally not be considered an emergency. However, our finances are still relatively tight with my wife not working, and I had forgotten to budget this expense in. The second reason is because of what I just mentioned: Without a second salary, we can only save money when I get my bonus checks. However, I will be getting a bonus in a week and a half, so I hope to see that green bar on the right get even closer to reaching its goal.

Student Loan: I am happy with the progress I am making on this. First, even though as I mentioned finances have been somewhat tight, I decided to increase my standard monthly payments to my dad from $300 to $400. Second, I feel confident in my ability to send at least another $1000 each bonus, which means my average monthly payment is about $730.

Lastly, I am interviewing next week for a part time job, the proceeds of which will go mostly towards this loan. That, on top of the fact that when my wife starts working again I will be able to increase the loan by yet another few hundred, means I can be looking at paying the rest of this $30,000 debt off in less than two years!

Car: With only eight payments left, I am close to finishing paying for my car, which I originally financed back in 2003. It’s tempting to pay it all off now, but considering I pay a paltry 1.9% interest rate I don’t see any reason to hurry it up.

Alas, it seems as though I won’t be finished with car payments completely. My wife and I have faced the harsh reality of living outside a city and trying to share one car. Unfortunately, unless her job schedule matches magically with mine, it’s nearly impossible. We are therefore looking at buying another car late this year. I’ll have more details on this soon, but we may be able to purchase my parent’s leased three year old, 17000 mile Honda Accord for an incredibly reasonable $15,000.

House and Retirement Savings: Alas, I am still a ways off from being able to contribute anything meaningful to either of these goals, so I have decided to remove them for the time being.