Back to my Comfort Zone: Paying Down Debt
May 12th, 2009 | 9:02 pm | Posted in Finance, Mortgage | 7 Comments »
After last month’s success at curbing my spending, I think I thought that I was going to give it another go this month, and then the month after that.
Kind of easing into the whole new “family” situation gracefully… (by the way, still nothing to report.)
But this morning, I tossed that idea.
I’m going to attack my debts again.
I’ve done it before and I’m convinced that I’m better at paying stuff down than I am at saving up so… that’s what I’m going to do.
The only debt still on the books is the mortgage.
As of this morning, I owe $104659.21 to the former Countrywide Home Loans (now Bank of America).
Falling back on my tried and tested weekly payment method, each Friday from here on out, I’ll be making a payment of $230. This will be in addition to my regular mortgage payment.
My trusty $1.89 calculator indicates that this plan will knock off over 1% of my mortgage balance every single month.
The more reliable amortization calculator on BoA’s website tells me that this puts me on schedule to pay off the mortgage in October of 2014 — 18 years early and just 5 years away.
Now I know what you’re thinkin’…
It’s either, “Wow, this guy has a ton of disposable income” or “Shoulda bought a bigger house…”
It’s actually a little bit of both, I guess, but I’m not fooling myself… I bought well below my means so that I’d have a lot of disposable income. I’m aware of that.
And I doubt that I’ll be able to stick to this aggressive payment plan until October of 2014 — I don’t expect to have this much disposable income indefinitely — but I have the ability now and I’ve shown that I’m not the greatest at saving money so this seems like the smartest thing to do with it…
And if I’m successful, I’ll be mortgage free in my 30′s… and probably semi-retired before my kids are even out of elementary school.
That’s more appealing to me than any amount of disposible income OR a bigger house…
May 12th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I too am aiming to be mortgage free in my 30s (hopefully early). Semi-retired sounds nice…
Throw $130 at Landsafe and you’ll turn that extra $920/month into an nice, round $1k/month.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Sounds great! Best wishes! Even if you have to cut back on your extra payments, you’ll still be further ahead than by not paying
May 14th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Right on! I wish you the best in paying off your mortgage.
I would be extremely excited at the prospect of having a paid for house in my 30′s along with semi-retirement before kids are out of school!
May 14th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I think paying off your mortgage is a great idea.
But why toss aside the idea of curbing spending? I’d think reduced spending would only aid you with your goal.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
@DD: Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still continue to try to keep my spending low but the self-imposed $2500/month ceiling is toast when I’m over-paying the mortgage by such a huge amount.
May 15th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Gotcha.
To tell you the truth, I’m not a fan of limits or ceilings. But that is probably because I can never stay within them.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:54 pm
[...] way I’d have more coming in to manage my own way — whether it be to pay down the mortgage even faster, save up for that much needed home improvement project, or finally get around to setting up and [...]