Payday this week. With the cash inflow I have ample cash savings + $11,000 set aside for 2015 IRAs.

I am thinking through our rough annual plan. $1,200/month to cash x 7 more months = $8,400 more to savings.

Planned Allotment:

-$1,000 Hawaii
-$2,000 Medical
-$1,000 Home Repair
-$3,100 to mortgage
-$1,200 to investments
----------------------
=$8,300

So I guess that is roughly where we are at.

We went forward with Hawaii plan this year even though we ended up doing some bigger splurges in recent months. I figured I could probably fund with credit card rewards. As is, we haven't spent our vacation budget and that will cover airfare. Our room is free. We are setting aside a generous (& also unnecessary) $1,000 for activities. This is like the *one* super splurge-y vacation I want to take my kids on.

Anyway, I am SO glad that I went forward with this trip. It seemed a little ridiculous, earlier in the year. But I kept thinking, "How much do we really need to spend? Worst case we lounge on the beach all week??"

I have seen a couple of angles to get airline miles but I am also fine with just cash flowing, which seems to be the much easier and more likely route. Relieved to feel that we will have ample cash for a splurge-y trip.

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Car replacement talks are very up in the air. May be just put off until next year. Not feeling any rush to make any decisions.

I am always amused by perceptions that aversion to car payments is just about interest. It is so much more than interest! (Maybe interest is the least of it??) Right now it seems that we just don't have a lot of motivation to jump on a car purchase. The longer we wait the more cash we will have to buy a nicer car. Paying cash seems a very strong incentive to keep cars longer. I have always felt that, but just even moreso as we are considering next car purchases.

We endlessly save up $100/month/each to replace our cars so have a rough $15,600 set aside to replace this car. $100 x 156 months. Our budget will be $10k-$15k. I don't even know that I see the point in spending more than $10k. Last time we stumbled upon a car deal for about 33% less than we planned to spend, so I am hoping for something like that to happen again!

{I guess in the past the most we have had to save up for a car was just a few years??? So it's nice to have all that time for those little amounts to add up! But also not feeling like we need to spend all of it...}.

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In other random news, dh and I basically have identical credit histories except he still has his very first credit card. I don't know if I have a credit card that is any older than 2 or 3 years. If I don't use them I cancel them. Our FICO scores are identical. (Since having a mortgage, that seems to be the meat of our FICOs. 100% on-time payments and is the only other kind of credit we have had aside from "paid off monthly credit cards").

Over time I guess I thought he was hanging onto that for FICO reasons or something. I guess the truth is that he just wanted a backup card in case we were out and about and joint card did not work. Which was maybe a valid concern a while ago but today we have like 3 joint credit cards that we use often. (Chasing all those rewards!) We keep different cards in our wallets.

So anyway, he finally finally agreed to cut up that credit card and cancel it. WOOHOO! I am so happy because my fear was it getting fraudulent charges and not noticing. Or terms changing and getting hit with some fee. Just one more thing to loosely keep track of though it's probably had no activity for like a decade.

The deed is done! I shot them a quick e-mail the other day and they closed the card. The end. Goodbye 20-year-old credit card!