We had a great date last night, first one without AA in over a month! We got a babysitter in, then went to a fancy cocktail bar in downtown Minneapolis, then to a sushi restaurant.

The sitter (one of our friends) said AA was upset that we were gone and kept trying to crawl down the hall to look for us. But the sitter did manage to take her mind off things and play and watch videos, and she went to sleep quickly as usual. Maybe she's getting through this stranger-fear stage!

Today we were meant to have an acquaintance come over to give us an in-home yoga session; he's an instructor trying to raise extra money for an upcoming trip to China. But he had to cancel, so I'm going to try and work out on my own (first time in weeks; I've been REALLY bad since Xmas). It's just as well because I spent a ton of money last night and would have had to dip into next Friday's spending money to pay him. We can reschedule for a week when I'm not going to pricy bars and restaurants!

Anyway, I'm really rambling away from the point of the post...

One of AS's student loan payments hit; $137 went to principal, meaning we surpassed our $1575 debt-repayment goal for January! In total, $1588 toward debt so far this month.

That brings AS's balance on this particular student loan down to $6003.

On Friday we got a $1869 check for the excess money on NT's latest student loan. I thought maybe I'd put that toward AS's student loan, since that's the highest interest loan that's currently in repayment. That would bring AS's student loan down to $4134.

Then I thought about the $5735 we have sitting in checking for lawyer fees. We've been accumulating this money through additional income streams. Now our ultimate goal is to have $9000 saved for lawyer fees, but the lion's share of this money won't be needed for over a year (if at all). And the extra income shows no sign of slowing, between AS's freelance editing and NT's overtime.

I currently pay about $147 per month on AS's student loan as well as an extra $700. About $35 per month goes toward interest. So I thought, what if I take $4134 of the lawyer money we've saved so far and pay of AS's student loan? To build up the savings again, I could take the $850 per month that would have gone to the student loan and have the lawyer fund built back up to today's level in five months. This would probably save us over $100 in interest, and wouldn't set us back for long in our saving for the legal procedures.

So, I think that's what I'm going to do. I might even get to $9000 with other income sources before the five months is up. Either way, once I've got the lawyer fund back to where it was (or all the way up to $9000) I can start hitting the next student loan.

So, the January debt repayment total is going to get very impressive! (But then, of course, debt repayment for the next five months decidedly unimpressive.)