Networth- $12,998

I finally updated my networth on Networth IQ this month after taking a January break. Things are moving upwards, despite some spending, so I'm happy.

In less than a year we've paid off 32% of the Prius. In the middle of 2009 my goal was to get the amount owed under $20K before they year ended. In 2010 we're working to get the balance under $10K. There will be some tax return money headed to the car (state hybrid credit, federal stimulus on the car tax) that will definitely help out. When I gave him my estimate (I've run our taxes 2-3 times now) he started daydreaming about what we would do with it until I quickly shut him down. I think if we're getting money back on the car purchase that money should pay down the car. He reluctantly agreed.

Our emergency fund also seems to have made significant gains- up to 70% of our goal. When we had the break in the efund was used to replace the stuff we lost. Our check was issued but got lost in the mail and reissuing it took forever. While all of that was happening $500/month from my salary was going into the efund so we're getting close to our short term goal of $10K. Any refund outside of the car items will go here.

The next 2, my student loan and our mortgage, are a bit more depressing. We're 1/4 of the way to getting out from under PMI/having 80% of our mortgage paid. Our PMI is less than $90/month, so it could be worse, but pissing away that money irritates me. In the next few weeks we may also tackle a refi. My student loan, despite 2 yrs of paying with a few over payments here and there, is only 17% paid off. As soon as the Prius is gone this baby is going to get knocked out. The recent rate reduction and my plan to get to another rate reduction in 15 months should both help.

In other news we bought a dining table and new couches, finishing out the downstairs. These purchases happened over the holiday break. Even though we're working on paying off debt we decided that we want to furnish our house over time instead of waiting until we are done. Until this point we haven't had a kitchen/dinning table. When we started living on his salary $250/paycheck went into a house stuff fund to take care of the table, chairs we'll need for outside, and any other house projects that come up.

The couches weren't planned for. On Christmas my husband broke the sofa that we had. Don't ask. At this point a love seat and sofa were the only furniture we had downstairs, so we decided to replace the set (moving the broken set to another area where the back of the couch can be supported). Luckily we had more than enough for the couches in the house stuff account. We were 4 days from the paycheck that would give us enough money when we bought the table. I honestly can't remember why, but we put them on a 0% store card. There was some logic at the time. Regardless, all of that money is hanging out and we could pay it off at any time. We'll enjoy the 1% interest the money is earning in the mean time.