Whew, last year did not go as planned in the financial
realm. Does it ever?
Our Mortgage Payoff plan got majorly derailed in July when
medical emergencies began with a broken leg and continued every couple of
months for the rest of the year. Insurance got way messed up and we ended up
owing more than we were originally told. We did not get off to a great start in
paying down our loan, but God blessed us with the money we needed to get
through the year and even a good bit extra for the mortgage these last two
months.
Paying off our house as quickly as possible is a big deal to
us because it largely impacts our ability to stay in this area long term. The
sooner we can cut our expenses, the less secular work my husband will have to
do to support our ministry here, and the more time he will have to do the work
of an evangelist. The final payment is a distant dream right now, but we
believe it will be worth the years of penny pinching to be able to focus more
on full-time work for the Church.
Here’s our End of Year Report, for my own records and
accountability.
Starting Loan Amount in May 2018: $126,300
Ending Loan Amount in December 2018: $120,120.79
Originally Payoff Date: May 6, 2048 (30 Year Loan)
Current Payoff Date: February 6, 2046 (If all we did was regular
payments from here on out)
Goal Payoff Date: May 6, 2025 (7 Year Loan)
Extra payments in 2018 totaled $4,735.90, shortening our
loan by 27 months and reducing our interest by $13,110.57.
That’s the part I want to encourage you with. By paying less
than $5,000 extra on our loan this year, we saved over $13k in interest! Our
income is around $50,000, and we don’t live like paupers. A good chunk of that
came from our tax return, but a lot of it was just money we kept ourselves from
spending on whims and wishes.
As we all get ready for tax season, I want to challenge you
to play with your numbers and see how much of your refund you might be able to
put toward your house this year. Plug the numbers into the Payoff Track app and see
how much even just one extra house payment will save you. It really is
incredible!
While we’re not as far ahead as we had hoped to be, we’re chugging
along. There were four months this year when we had zero extra to pay. In fact,
in June we got ourselves into credit card debt for the first time. After we got
back on top of that, we didn’t have quite as much to put toward the house as we
had wanted each month, but seeing that we’ve already knocked two years off our
loan is great motivation to get back on track this year.
