Update on the Financial Front.

We are making some headway on our Financial Reviatalization goal.

We got all of our checking and savings accounts straightened out. All of our cards came in the mail yesterday - mine with my new married name! The last thing that we - erm, MARK! needs to do, but is dragging his feet and he'd better do it today if he knows what's good for him, is get his paperwork in to get his paychecks direct deposited into our joint checking account, which will then allow him to close out the personal account that he has with another bank and move it over to the bank where his new accounts are. ::gives Mark the side-eye::

Today, I called to finish off the last part of getting my name changed - my credit cards. I have two CCs in my name.

I called the first company and after getting all of my name info updated, I requested a reduction in my APR. This card is kind of a secondary card for me. I usually don't carry a balance on it. I just put small things on there and then pay it off. First, they were willing to reduce my APR by 11% (yeah, my request was WAY overdue). Then, I talked them into an additional 2% by offering to do a balance transfer of $500, which is fine with me because I was just getting ready to pay that off anyway. Overall, they cut my APR by 50%! Yay for me and my lightening-fast-ninja-financial skillz!

::pats self on back::

I called the second company and got my name stuff straightened out, but they were unable to lower my APR at all (it's already low anyway so I'm not surprised). They claimed it's because I don't use it enough. Whatever, dude. It's just because I don't carry a balance on it for very long.

We are also getting ready to move some of Mark's debt around in order to make things work better for us in paying that off. I'm excited to get started!

ALSO, I just checked out our new ING Orange Savings Account (this is the first whole month that we've had it) and we earned $10 in interest on our balance! Woohoo! You can't beat that! I wish that I had known about the wonders of ING Direct sooner, but at least we are using it now.