Well, after visiting and messing around with Tickerfactory for an insane amount of time, I could not find anything that adequately conveyed the "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your Emergency Fund grow?" theme. So, I abandoned it in favor of the "Godzilla-scale Piggy Bank, stomping the evil Debt City" theme. Okay, so the city doesn't really look that evil, but that's just what they want you to think. Debt doesn't look evil either. In fact, all the commercials make it look nice... Hey! Buy stuff! Then you can be just like everyone else, while still remaining uniquely you, and you will be happy! (Those "priceless" commercials of a certain credit company have got to be the worst of these money-can-buy-happiness messages!)

THEY ARE WRONG!

Does having more month left at the end of your money make you happy?

Does wondering how you will buy diapers or formula for your babies or how you will put gas in your car because the bank balance is super-negative make you happy?

Does waking up exhausted in the morning because you were tossing and turning half-the-night with dreams full of financial anxiety make you happy?

Does realizing you could have paid off several of your bills with what you ended up having to pay in overdraft charges this month make you happy?

Does not being able to provide the "extra" things for your children make you happy?

Does being stuck renting houses, renting furniture, or paying exhorbitant interest rates because your credit is so bad make you happy?

Does having a nervous, anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach everytime you check your bank balance make you happy?

How bad is it?

They say that ignorance is bliss. I tried that route and ended up where I am today. Today, I crushed the ignorance. I gathered up as many envelopes and pieces of mail as I could find. I went online, creating accounts, user names, and passwords. I brought it all together and sorted it out. Boy! Did it feel good to throw out a stack- I mean a BIG stack- of mail and envelopes (all just duplicate bills and statements because I didn't pay the first time). But that's another blog for another day. I'm putting off the statement of what I discovered. What I discovered is neither painful or joyful. It's just kinda there. As of right now, to my knowledge, we are about $63,500 in debt. About $1500 of that is past due medical bills. About $9000 of that is for our car loan (we just got a new-to-us van last September). And that scary part... the rest of our current debt is due to student loans (about $7000 mine and the rest DH's). So, I spent the afternoon making up some nice charts on Excel (I love Excel! What did we ever do without it?). I figure that we can take $1500 of our tax return and knock-out the medical bills. After that, we can hit one of my student loans that has about $1600 left to pay on it. Currently, we are paying almost $150 a month toward that, so even if we just left it, it would be paid off a year from now. But that's not quite good enough. I want that sucker gone so we can free up that $150 a month! And, that's about as far as I've gotten in my plan.
All in all, not a bad day. My budget/calendars are printed up for the year and are waiting peacefully in their allocated monthly pocket in the "super file". All the known bills are in one place, weeded through, and charted in Excel. And, we have a positive bank balance! Now, I think I'm going to curl up with a little Dave Ramsey until the kids wake up from their naps.