3rd Annual Update

On the Digging Out:
Well, our credit card debt is not paid down yet. It's kind of painful to read my post from last year and compare where we're at right now with our debt. We have $22,992 in credit card debt. Of that debt, $7K of new debt belongs to my husband's business, so our family debt is $16K.

I read my profile and realize how the frugality has slipped. We've been shopping almost exclusively at Whole Foods. I buy pretty much what I want, but I do pay attention to cost and skip things that are expensive and out of season. We also buy our meat directly from a rancher, which is not cheap, but is definitely healthier.

We've taken some awesome vacations and have decided to commit ourselves to having vacations to keep ourselves from getting too crispy. Besides, we enjoy them and it's really nice to get to spend uninterrupted family time in a beautiful locale.

In my defense, I got pretty good pay raise so I feel justified in spending more on ourselves. And, we've taken on $20K/year in childcare costs, so that cuts into our ability to pay down debt. We're still trying to pay down our debt, just not quite as aggressively.

Squirreling Away:
We contributed $31K last year to our retirement plans. None to our sons college fund, though and I'm feeling a little lousy about that. On 4/26/10, our retirement account totals were over $271K, which feels awesome, but we might be seeing a double-dip in the market and we're down to $241K (-4.2% YTD return), which is disappointing.

On bad days I dream about retiring early. I'm trying to make that a possibility, if I want it when the time comes.