They say you should have X months worth of income saved up for tougher times or emergencies. I have just started saving last year, and I have not contributed anything to retirement because all my savings have gone into an emergency fund first. My goal is to save up $12,000 and put it in a high-yield savings account. After that I hope to start saving for retirement. I still have to work a few more months at my job (been working there 2.5 years now) before my retirement benefits kick in anyway. Do you have an emergency fund? Is it fully funded?

My wife finished our holiday spending. Our combined spending has hit about $500. We bought yearly National Geographic subscriptions for 3 gifts at ($15 for 12 issues bought from their online store). Other gifts include: a coach wallet for $80 (was $150), a 8gb ipod nano for $179 (was $199), 3 t-shirts for $15 ea., gloves for $18, 12 heirloom veg. seedlings for $6 ea. and a $25 gift certificate. I would have liked to have spent less than $500 but I think we did ok considering we're not really part of a non-spending family anyway. Besides, the ipod doubles as a birthday gift as well. Best of all, even with buying the holiday gifts, we still spent less than any month this year. It must be that we have everything we want!