As my husband prepares to start his new job, I'm hashing out all the little financial details to make the transition go smoother for all involved -- mainly our creditors.

The extra income from the first paycheck will be going back in our fence fund. We used the original fence money to buy my husband a bunch of new suits this weekend since the new job requires that he wears a suit every day instead of his usual slacks and dress shirt.

After the first month, we will start divvying up the extra income into thirds, with a third going toward debt, a third going toward savings and a third going toward current expenses (i.e. vision therapy).

I did the math the other day and if we stay on track we should have all our debt paid off within 5 to 7 years. Also, once the vision therapy is done, we will be able to afford a car payment so we can replace my husband's van, which is on its last wheels. However, before we buy a new car, I want to sock away a huge down payment so it'll probably be more like a year from now before we go car shopping.

We have also decided to pay someone to replace the fence instead of doing it ourselves. I plan on getting estimates next month and then getting work done in September or October.

Meanwhile, my husband left me with all the automatic deposit and withholding paperwork to fill out this morning. Pretty funny given my history with banking....

My husband got a new job last week, which came with a gigantic pay raise. I did the math this morning and figured that if we take a third of his raise and put it toward our existing debt we could be rid of almost all our unsecured debt within five years. The only debt left would be my stepson's student loans, which we have not started paying on.

I did a little happy dance, and then calculated some more and figured out that we can now pay to have someone replace our fence. And -- most importantly -- I can keep our biweekly housekeeper visits up.

Big happy dance!