By AmysFinerThings | Leave A Comment
Call it robbing Peter to pay Paul, call it sacrifice, call it crazy… but two months ago my husband and I took a closer look at our 15 year mortgage. We took out the loan 2 1/2 years ago when we moved to Tiny Town, comfortable with our payment considering his much reduced teacher’s salary.
Fast forward through the past couple years of frugal living, and our curiosity got the best of us. An inquiry to our mortgage company has confirmed that we can pay off our home in three years. Three! Since we have no other debt and our retirement account is consistently funded, we’re going to go for it (yes, we also have emergency and vehicle savings)! The extra $500 per month that we are paying (on one teacher’s salary!) comes from the following things that we do without.
- no cable, no satellite = $50
- no vehicle payment (our 1994 and 2001 models have been paid off for years and run just fine) = $350
- no monthly cell phone bill (we pay $100 per year for our prepaid cell) = $100
I could keep listing other frugal savings (cook at home, entertain at home, etc.), and my figures are clearly estimates… I really have no idea what those things cost… but you get the picture, right? By making a few sacrifices (and by the grace of God!) we are going to save 9 years and $9,000 in mortgage payments!
What can you sacrifice in order to save big? Check out this mortgage calculator. Plug in some numbers and see just how much you could save in years of debt and needless interest money. Even adding $50 per month to your mortgage makes a big difference. Motivate yourself to sacrifice in order to save big!
Photo by edwardleger
Amy is a Tiny Town Kansas mom of three small children convinced that living a life rich in The Finer Things brings much more peace and happiness than anything money can buy.
ABOUT AmysFinerThings
After eight years of teaching middle school in the suburbs, Amy gave up her job to embrace her full-{read more}
Loading ...
What a great reminder, Amy! Fantastic that you will be able to pay off your home so quickly! I would definitely rather sacrifice now, than worry about being with a mortgage later.
I am very interested in knowing what kinds of cars you are driving?!
I work with several people young enough to be my children *argh*, and they talk quite often about trading in their “old cars” (think 1 or 2 model years back) for something better, or adding in a sound system that costs more than any car I’ve ever bought.
That’s great that you can pay off your home in such a short amount of time. I read somewhere that if you have no rent/mortgage expenses that you need to make about half the money than if you did have those expenses (it’s half because you make money which you then have to pay taxes on, but if you don’t need that money you don’t have to make it and you don’t have to pay taxes on what you don’t make). The article I read explained it much better than that.
Anyhoo, that’s amazing! Best of luck to you. We are currently trying to pay down our mortgage as well,but our goal is to pay down 20% which will take another year of very hard work. That’s fantastic that you will have it paid off in three years.
This is such an inspiration to me! Thanks for sharing.