Doing Student Loans Gazelle Style

We are going to get gazelle intense with the student loans. They've been on hold for awhile because we owed $1800 in taxes, unexpectedly. To help offset that, we decided we'd have another kid (he he). Unfortunately, having another kid meant we had to write a $9,000 plus check for a one year old Chrysler Town and Country, so we will not break even for quite a while.

The good news is that in a few weeks, we should get our economic stimulus rebate and then we can throw it at my student loan. That should mean about two thousand dollars in reduced principle next month! These loans total just over $550 per month in minimum payments on the shortest repayment plan and we have about a grand per month budgeted for them. From this point on, most everything extra will go their way as well (which will hopefully add up to a lot).

So here is our goal: to pay off my student loan, over $20,000, by fall of 2009!

And for archival, here is what the progress bars looked like when we first started:

2008 Payoff Progress:

0.23%

$214

$92,000

First Ken's Loan:

0.65%

$145

$22,300

Then Tamra's Loan:

0.1%

$69

$69,700

Kaitlyn's Fourth Birthday Photos

Here is a photo of the wonderful caterpillar shaped cake my wife Tamra made for Kailtyn's fourth birthday:

and here is one of her looking at the camera:

Kaitlyn's Fourth Birthday

Kaitlyn, our oldest, had her fourth birthday today. Tamra's dad and his wife, Jen, came to visit. Tamra made a delecious cake in the shape of a caterpillar with Kaitlyn's name spelled out in sugar cookies and "Happy Birthday" written on small sugar cookies. A video summary is below...

Kaitlyn and Ellie's first flight in Cessna 172

Mercer County Community College had a fund raising for their flight team last weekend. I took the opportunity for Kailtyn and Ellie to have a flight in a Cessna 172. The river out of Kaitlyn's window is the Delaware River. We crossed it and went into Pennsylvania and then headed back.