Yippee!

The tax refund came in today. Since I no longer have a pulpit, I expect this will be the last of the major-league tax refunds (upwards of 3K) that I'll be getting. (There are a couple of major tax breaks that pulpit clergy get that ordinary mortals don't, and also since I won't own a house anymore - one way or the other - there won't be much in the way of itemization).

I've mentioned that we've been having trouble making ends meet. In part this is because I've been attempting to put the pedal to the metal in dealing with some of our debt. So here's what happened to the new money:

$1,000 into savings, to provide an overdraft cushion. (We had to use what we had there this month to cover Pesah expenses.)

I doubled what we've been paying monthly toward credit card debt - I paid off the Banana Republic card, which was small beans but a high interest rate and according to the debt snowflake model you should deal with the lowest balances first.

$400 to DW's card, $800 to my card. (Her's has a lower balance and a lower interest rate.)

$200 toward my Federation pledge (mustn't forget our tzedakah!)

That about does it. The rest of it will go to the rent, and a little cushion until DW's part time jobs start paying. When I get the so-called stimulus check, I may make an extra payment on our car loan. I'd also like to bolster our savings a little bit more. But our highest priority are the credit cards.