Intro + two questions

[jenett]

Hi there! Great idea (and name) for a community. I'm Jenett, and last spring I finally got the real adult-paying job to go with the Master's in Library Science (I'm the teacher librarian at an independent high school.) Before that, I was a (much less well paid) library assistant at the same school - great experience, but hard on my finances. I've lived in Minnesota for the last 10.5 years, and love it here.

- Various money decisions during my marriage + subsequent divorce were not really kind to my finances, and I spent about 4 years living on a painfully tight budget as a result.
- BUT! I'm 2 months away from paying off more than $25,000 in debt. (I still have student loan debt, but I'm a lot less worried about that one.)
- And I've now got enough money that I can look at all sorts of fun long-term planning. Yay!

( Stuff on my mind right now - advice welcome! )