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"Knowing that April brings with it three paychecks instead of the usual two has provided me some liberation. It doesn&amp;#039;t matter how little or how much, but whenever I know that additional income is coming in I get excited and hopeful. I shared with you in an earlier post that I was having a difficult time deciding what to do with this additional money and that I would be asking both your advice and the advice of Laura Rowley, a Personal Finance Consultant with Yahoo! Finance. There were a lot of choices and a lot of maybes. With two teenage girls and a son that just turned ten, I am very conscious of who my children are spending time with and where they are. I have the luck of having a basement that is entirely finished (although unadorned and dull) and just needs some fresh-colored paint, furniture and a television to make it an alluring family room for all of the kids to hang out in. Laura had told me in one of our previous conversations that turning her basement into a finished family room was one of the best investments that she had made. It really added a lot of space for her and brought the family closer together. But then I thought about just saving all of it for any of the myriad emergencies that could come my way. Or, I thought about putting it towards a new roof or a new kitchen (I&amp;#039;ve told you that the door front on one of my cabinets has fallen off completely) or some new landscaping for a backyard that goes totally unused due to its unappealing and bleak look. Right now, its purpose is only to house the trampoline and to serve as my dog Henry&amp;#039;s personal bathroom. So what did I decide? In aligning my spending and saving with my values I must do the following: -I will put $700 into my emergency fund. This will bring me peace of mind knowing that I am feeding my savings anytime that extra cash comes my way. Providing security for my family is critical and of utmost importance to me. -I will put $500 into a separate savings account that will be earmarked for my family room so that my kids can have a fun, appealing and happy place to hang out with their friends\u2026at home. -The rest will be put toward upcoming bills and maybe earmarked for some summer fun with the kids. I feel happy with my final decision. I think I made a little bit of room for everything. Do you agree? Or would you have done something different? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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