Background: Our life situation

I believe that money advice and information is more useful if you have a frame of reference when considering the advice. All advice isn't good advice, and not all good advice applies to everyone at the time they hear the advice.

Here's our life situation

• I just barely graduated and am working full time.
• My wife is getting her MBA.
• We have two young kids (both under 3).
• We rent an apartment, but are planning on buying a house in the next 18 months.
• We have about three years of car payments remaining, at zero percent interest.
• We will have to start paying interest on student loans in June 2009. (About $6000 total in loans)
  
• We don't carry a balance on our Credit Cards
• My work has a 401(k) plan with matching up to 3% of my salary (Salary: $50,000/yr + bonuses)
  
• My wife and I both have minor money making hobbies (no dependable income, probably a total of several thousand extra dollars a year)
• We believe in the law of tithing, and pay 10% of all our income to our church, as well as other offerings from time to time.
  

We are a deeply religious family, but I will try my hardest not to be a zealot or to push religious views too heavily in this blog. If you are offended by the mentioning of religion in a financial blog, you have several options:

1. This is the Internet, and you are free to find another site to visit
2. Realize that not everyone is just like you, and that we can agree on some things and disagree on others
3. Every time I mention faith, blessings or the likes, do a mental search and replace and say belief and luck instead
   

I've got friends with all sorts of beliefs including Zoroastrian, Jewish, Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, Spiritist, Agnostic, Athiest and more. What we have in common brings us together as friends, what is different provides variety in our lives.

Tomorrow: An overview of our current accounts