The Precarious Financial Empire

I find myself getting ahead of... myself. At least in terms of laying the foundation for this blog. A bit (more) backstory is probably required to put many of these details in context. I am not yet sure just how many nitty gritty details I am comfortable divulging on the interwebs. But, in broad brush strokes, what does our financial empire look like?

The groundwork -
We have no consumer debt. That's an important tidbit. Only a mortgage. Albeit a big mortgage.

The 2 cars are fully paid for, and newish.

We are very avid credit card users, but pay off our balance in full every month. This is our scheme for earning various reward points to help with all sorts of expenses.

I received a rather large severance package in November of '08. I have spent exactly $0 of said severance package. That, in conjunction with the long term savings we already had, is our nest egg money, currently churning away in CDs and online savings accounts. It doesn't have a purpose right now, other than making me feel secure. It is my true disaster fund, and equals a years worth of my income, a little less than 6 months of the Husbands.

In addition, I have my elaborate (not really) set up of smaller savings accounts at my local Credit Union. This includes -

My 'slush fund' : referenced in my goals. This is where we save for big purchase and also use it for smaller emergencies (unpredicted vet visits, car trouble, etc). This is usually $1000 - $1500 depending on what we are saving for.

The overflow fund: a $500 higher rate interest account. I just keep it at the $500 to get the higher rate, rolling the interest down to the slush fund each month. Its basically the back up to the slush fund, should we get 1 emergency after another.

The cushion: I keep about a $1,000 in my checking account that is not 'on the books', as in not seen in my balance. It exists only to quell my paranoia about unanticipated large transactions hitting my checking account. So, yes, another back-up to the back-up.

I have several 401k accounts that I have rolled over from various employers into an IRA, with a healthy balance for a 20 something.

Without any and all of the above in place, I would not have felt comfortable quitting my job 4 months ago. That decision really was a long time in the making. While my income took a huge hit, my hope is the existing framework already in place will allow me to continue to grow the empire on much less.