On April 6, 2018, a childhood dream died.
We took out
our first loan.
Ever since I
was a preteen girl sitting in on my parents’ Dave Ramsey class, I had this wild
dream of paying cash for a house and never. Ever. going into debt.
....I'll pause here for you to laugh....
As we
all know, life happens and saving that kind of money takes gazelle intensity,
and probably fewer kids with fewer major medical emergencies.
I hate debt.
I really, really do. It can quickly drown you and gets out of your hands faster
than a terrified lizard drenched in oil. (Is that a saying? It should be.) However, I also recognize that going into debt is not necessarily a sin, and it
is sometimes necessary.
With the end of our lease looming and the cost of rentals rising, we simply couldn’t afford to keep renting in this area. We
have five monkeys, and no one would rent us less than a 4 bedroom house, at
about $1800 a month. Yikes.
By the grace
of God and the generosity of our brothers and sisters, we’ve been able to avoid
debt up till now, but we’ve built up very little savings. So, we came to terms with the fact that buying a house with
cash was out of the question. Sigh. Good-bye, Childhood Dream! You
kept me out of a lot of trouble, but you’re just no longer practical.
I then entered that bargaining stage of grieving my broken dreams. Like, what if we
bought a really, really cheap house and paid it off really, really fast? That
would still kinda-sorta be the same, right? Um, no, not really. Nonetheless, our hopes high, we began our house hunting search only looking at properties
under $50,000. It didn’t take long to tour all two of those dilapidated,
uninhabitable homes.
Mmmk. We
bumped it up to $100k. While we found more properties that were technically livable,
we didn’t find any that didn't require pretty immediate repairs costing at
least $25k. And most of those had mold problems. I’m allergic to mold. So,
yeah. No.
With spring
fast approaching (a.k.a. the end of our lease) we bit the bullet and got preapproved with our bank in order to find out just how much we
would be allowed to borrow. You know, just out of curiosity.
Do you know
something? Banks are crazy! I’m not one of those people who is all hush-hush
about finances. I don’t care if you know how much we make, so I’m going to go
ahead and tell you that with Joshua’s preaching salary and his part-time job driving a school bus, we make about $48,000 a year. He hasn’t been with his
part-time job for 2 years yet, so the bank doesn’t count that income. And they
STILL would let us borrow $135,000.
Let’s just
think about that for a second. They are willing to let a family of 7 (who, for
their purposes, makes less than $30,000 a year) borrow one hundred and
thirty-five THOUSAND dollars; which, over the course of 30 years, is going to
actually cost $240,992.39. And we’re supposed to actually be able to pay that
off. On $30k a year. With 5 kids. Does this strike anyone else as COMPLETELY INSANE? Or is it just me? No wonder people are foreclosing right and left.
Who can seriously, actually, raise a family and keep up a mortgage on $30k these days???
Sorry. I’m
probably overreacting. But, guys, debt! It’s CRAZY! In reality, we make more
than $30k, so yes, we can afford that kind of mortgage. But the fact that they
are willing to let us borrow over 4 times our countable income… It’s a
conspiracy. They don’t WANT you to pay off your debt…
Anyway. End rant.
So, what did
we do? We bought a house for $135,000 of course…
I know.
You’re never supposed to buy as much as you qualify for. But… We did. And we
truly believe that this house is a blessing from God. It’s already completely
handicap accessible, and in an area with mostly two-level homes, that is a huge
deal. Little Miss is loving how easily she can get around in her wheelchair!
But, I can’t
completely forget Dave Ramsey. He’s still influencing my financial dreams.
Enter,
More-Practical-But-Still-Kinda-Sketchy Grownup Dream: Pay off our mortgage in
less than 7 years.
Why 7?
Because 7 years is the length of indentured servanthood. And I don’t want to be
a servant of the bank for longer than that (see Proverbs 22:7).
Can we do
that on an income of less than $50,000? Who knows. Want to find out? I’m inviting you along
as a spectator. To hold ourselves accountable and stay motivated, we’re going
to keep track of how much extra we’re able to put toward the mortgage. I plan
on posting updates here so that you can follow the journey.
A couple
things before we begin, though. I always hesitate to post financial articles.
People are weird about money. They just are. It’s one of those taboo topics
that you’re not supposed to talk about in polite society. It’s never made me
uncomfortable to talk finances, but I know it can make some people a little
uneasy, and I hate to do that. I don’t want you to feel like I’m being judgy
about how you spend your money, or like I’m bragging about how we spend ours.
That’s totally not why I am doing this. I just think it’s fun, interesting, and
a good way for me to stay focused. That’s all. If it inspires you to slash some
of your own debt, cool. If it makes you uncomfortable, I will NOT be offended
if you choose to skip these posts.
Secondly,
putting all this out there makes me a little uncomfortable. I know, I know, I
know. I just said I don’t mind talking personal finances. And that’s mostly
true. But, there is a part of me that says, Don’t
do it. Somehow, someway, someone will use this against you. Maybe that fear
comes from the fact that we’re on support. A preacher’s family on support has
to be very careful about revealing personal details. (Or, so I’m told.) Maybe it’s because I don’t like failing and I recognize that paying off that
much money in 7 years is doomed
to failure really hard. At any rate, I was very
hesitant to do this. After some prayer, consideration, and discussion with my
husband, I came to the conclusion that those are partly valid and partly
unnecessary concerns, and that ultimately the benefits outweigh the risks.
So. If you’ll
agree not to maniacally use this information against my family and promise
not to make too much fun of me when we don’t pay off our loan in 7 years
ecstatically celebrate with us when we succeed, you’re welcome to follow our
progress!
Purchase
Price: $135,000
Interest
Rate: 4.625%
Down
Payment: $8,700 (this included a
$6,000 grant)
Loan Amount:
$126,300
Monthly
Payment (including insurance and taxes): $974.51
Expected Payoff Date: April 6, 2025
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