Saturday, July 24, 2021

Mortgage home stretch

We are SO close to paying off our mortgage! It's such an exciting feeling. We've paid off 97.5%! We are expecting to have the full amount paid by the end of September. As soon as that's complete, we will work on saving up for our taxes, as we opted to put the full sale of our vacation house into the mortgage, vs holding the taxes back. It saves us about $10k in interest, so it's worth it.

We are going super hard at that last chunk of mortgage and it's fun to see it dwindling every week. Fast forwarding to when we have the taxes paid, I'll be in savings mode for a few months to beef up our savings accounts, and then ready to leave my job. Home stretch!

The boys & my dad (along with some of their bike friends) completed a huge mountain biking ride yesterday. The boys rode 40+ miles (the first 1/3 in the dark, powered only by head lamps), & my dad rode close to double that. They are all thrilled with themselves, & exhausted, as you can imagine. My dad was doing it for a large fundraiser. The boys joined to support my dad, and Nick has been talking about, training for, and planning for this bike ride for the past year. I'm thrilled that everyone made their goals, and there were no injuries. I haven't gotten details yet (they were in a national forest, with no cell service), but today I should be learning more about the adventure. I'm very proud of everyone. 

Here's what's on the to do list for today:

  1. Return sunblock to Rite Aid
  2. Pick up a few items at Trader Joes
  3. Costco
  4. Grocery store (they are having a sale on pasta, which is Nick's favorite food ;-))
  5. Pickle a variety of peppers
  6. Run
  7. Strength workout
  8. Pick up the house
  9. Contact yard service about neighbor sprinkler issue
  10. Set up global entry appointment
  11. Work in the garden a bit
  12. Read by the pool :-) 
  13. Dinner - wings & caprese salad
That's it for us. What are you up to today?


13 comments:

  1. Paying off our first mortgage early enabled us to never carry another mortgage. It was the single best financial decision we ever made. I will tell you, however, that I did get a bit weary of the austerity measures we used to get there. (Did it on one income.) I know how disciplined you had to be to get to this point, so WAY TO GO!!!!

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    1. Thank you! It's been quite an adventure to get here. We have no regrets, but it will feel so nice to reach this milestone.

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  2. Congratulations!!! You are so close to mortgage payoff!!! I am cooking Chicken and rice, Sides are orn on cob and raw green onions with salt. Middle kid requested this and although it is two starches, I did it anyway. I walked in local park earlier this morning and grocery shopped at Target, since it is literally two blocks from my retirement house. Cindy in the South

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    1. I don't know that I've eaten raw green onions in any quantity - maybe I'll have to try that.

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  3. I am so excited for you to be so close to paying off your mortgage! How thrilling! And how terrific that the boys and your Dad completed their goals!

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  4. I agree with Meg B.-paying off a mortgage early is the best financial move we ever made too! Been mortgage-free since March 2007...14+ years now. Paying it off early made it possible to cash flow college for 3 kids and stuff a lot of cash away for retirement so Hubs could retire early. Congrats on having the finish line so close!

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    1. You're right - the flexibility it provides is really amazing

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  5. That's incredible, yay!! So happy for y'all - what a huge huge load off your shoulders that will be!

    I have to make a phone call (which should not feel like the biggest pain ever but it does) and work on the biggest data back up project ever today.

    I already did my little investing tweak this morning. I started automated investing contributions finally and have been getting used to that with little tweaks to the amounts and the dates that we auto-invest.

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    1. It's funny how the little things really add up, don't they? I had to send a text yesterday, and I just dreaded it. Once I did it (which, sending a text isn't exactly a big ask - it's just I knew I didn't quite know what I needed), well, at least the ball is now rolling!

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  6. Wow! I can't imagine how excited you all will be when that final payment is made. Huge relief!

    I'm on my last day of a week's holiday - back to work tomorrow, so today is very quiet. Just puttered around a bit: repotted several plants, vaccumed, finished a couple of book reviews, that sort of thing. Not sure how I feel heading back to the office tomorrow, but there we are! Looking forward to your final mortgage payment post! xx

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  7. THat is so great, you will really see your life open up when you have no mortgage!

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  8. Congratulations! You & your DH have worked so hard at this! You are going to love not having a mortgage anymore. We've never had a mortgage, but I enjoyed following your journey.

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