Strategical Defensive Financial Move

April 28th, 2010 | 11:18 am | Posted in Cutting Costs, Finance, Mortgage | 7 Comments »

When it comes to my finances, I like to think that I tend to attack my debts aggressively and, for the most part, follow the same line when it comes to my savings and investments too.

But this morning, my wife and I pulled a 180.

We sat down with a mortgage broker and discussed re-financing our mortgage — and not the cash-out variety so as to renovate the first floor of our home (which is desperately needed).

Nope, this was purely a defensive maneuver.

I want a lower monthly payment and I want to eliminate PMI.

That’s it.

Now, of course, we only filled out the application and all that this morning so who knows if it’ll actually come to fruition but it seemed like the right time to, well, play some defense.

See, financially, I think we’re pretty darn close to the best position we’ll ever be in — on paper anyway — with two comfy incomes, retirement accounts where we want them (and growing), over $20k in the bank, lots of equity in our home, and zero credit card debt between us.

Now most of the time I’m not one to prognosticate but I’m also not going to say that we’ll be exempt from any, I dunno, financial disasters in the future… and that’s why I want to take advantage of the situation I find myself in now, you know, before we finally cave in and buy a minivan…

This move could potentially cut my mortgage payment down to around $510 per month. I’ve made monthly car payments significantly higher than that.

That’s a difference maker.

Now this won’t mean that I’ll cut out the weekly payments or even the total amount that I send towards the mortgage anyway — it’ll just be a piece of mind thing knowing that I’ll really only “need” to pay $510…

This all, of course, hinges on an appraisal.

(insert scary fanfare here)

For long time readers, this causes me great anxiety…

The guy said that it “could” be waived and I’m hoping my financial info and stellar credit are enough to make that happen but if not, well, we might be having some quick and dirty drywalling on the horizon…