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by Tricia

We recently received a minor windfall when we surrendered a whole life insurance policy. The timing of that check ($1,300) enabled us to hit the halfway mark with our debt. For the past few days I have been debating what to do with the rest of it.

I finally decided to go ahead and use some of it to increase the amount in our emergency fund to $2,500. That was the amount that we were aiming to have in there some time ago, but we never made that goal. For now, we will leave our emergency fund at $2,500 and concentrate 100% on paying down our debt.

There is still some money left from the insurance check. My son’s recent unexpected visit to the doctor gobbled some of it up (he’s okay – the doctor thinks he caught a bad bug going around). We will probably put a few hundred more towards our credit card debt and keep the rest around for a little bit. That will give us some breathing room for Christmas-time.

I still can’t believe that we actually have thousands of dollars in the bank at this very moment. I can get used to having money stashed away like that. It gives you a sense of security knowing it is there if you need it.