My plan this year was to bump my emergency fund from $12k to $15k.

To do so, I was going to add $3k to my cash ROTHs.

I expect a $2k tax refund due to all the medical bills (& thus, many one-time tax deductions). I will file my taxes in early Feb. and apply the refund to our 2010 ROTH contributions.

I've been waffling back and forth on that other $1k. It was my goal all along, but next year I will be sacrificing cash for retirement savings. I don't know if I want to tie up another $1k in retirement (even if I could easily pull it out in emergency!)

Anyway, I was just paying all the bills for December, and seemed flush with cash. I finally figured that since I was charging my insurance premiums (new feature) that I was skipping one month of payment. Since I don't have to pay for the December charge until the credit card bill was due in January.

Wala! I rounded up and put $750 as a transfer to my ROTH in December. I expect $250, easily, in Christmas cash to cover the rest. Problem solved!

It's cheating a little, but this was a really unexpected benefit to being able to charge my insurance. I was just looking forward to the cash rewards.