Love it when a mistake ends up in MY favor!

I called all the utility companies today for the final payoff info since our mail is in forwarding la-la-land.  Took care of getting those payments set to be mailed out (love online banking!)

While I was making phone calls, I figured I'd find out what our last vehicle payoff amount is.  We have this loan through a pretty small old-school bank.  I actually was given a payment book when we bought the car.  They don't have an internet account system where I could check the balance along the way, so I've been estimating.  We've made several large payments over the last couple of years, so really, I only had a vague idea what the balance was.

Well, was I WAY off!!!  It's about $2500 LESS then I was expecting.  And oddly enough, it's within $200 of our tax refund.  Sweet!

Thanks to the extra money from Darrell's Iraq deployment, we've been able to pay off four of our six credit/loan accounts in the past 16 months.  If I get a job in the next couple months, it's conceivable that we could be out of consumer debt this year, and possibly even pay off my last student loan soon after that.

I.  Can't.  Wait.

We have nothing invested for retirement, other than the years Darrell has with the Army.  We're way behind the power curve, but I'm hoping 2010 will turn that around.  And, if things go according to the Army's current plan, Darrell will be back overseas again some time that year (*cue rolling eyes here*) which means we'll have a few more dollars to throw at a retirement fund.

:::

D and I dropped by the new place again this morning.  The living spaces look so small without furniture in them!  *laugh*  We were looking through windows still, haven't been able to get inside...  The bedrooms upstairs are bigger than we've ever had, though.  Well, the master bedroom is a bit smaller than our South Carolina house, but the boys rooms are much bigger than they're used to.  Here's hoping we can contain most of their toys UPstairs.