Starting the emergency fund and budgeting

I made my first extra payment to the my smallest debt this last Wednesday! I think it is kind of rewarding to pay off a debt and then move to the next one. Frugal dad - one of my blogs on the right did some math that showed paying off the smallest one didn't always save the most money. He also made the point, though, that paying off an entire credit card could motivate you to get through the process faster. I believe that to be true as I try to pay off my debt. It feels good to work toward a simple goal of paying off the smallest one first and then address the bigger and more difficult ones as you have achieve bigger debt payoffs. Anyway, we are on our way.

We also have the budget in place to go forward. We sold off a mutual fund this last month in order to help pay for our mortgage, but I think it should also be enough to fund our emergency fund for now. That will help us not to use any credit cards as we try and get rid of the debt.

There is also one last thing, we are coming up on the start of school and obviously we need to buy new clothes and school supplies, etc. We have been able to save a little bit by getting some uniform hand-me-downs from a neighbor, and my wife ran across a killer sale where she only spent 6 dollars and bought a ton of supplies(my mom also helped us out)! We will see how far that goes, and hopefully it will be enough so we can continue to try and decrease our spending.