We survived with just $25 in our spendable account. I kept checking the account yesterday, worried I had forgotten about an expense that would go thru but last night, just before my pay went in, our balance was still $25. Yeah! And never again shall I put money into the savings without a more accurate account of what needs to be paid first. Paying self first is a great plan but one must be able to support the plan too!
I did a quick tally to see where we're at for total debt repayment. A few years ago, our debt totalled $207,310. We are now down to $126,585. So we've paid off $80,725. I wish it was the other way around but we're getting there, one payment at a time! Most of our debt is our mortgage, now sitting at $98,410. This is good debt & not one we lay awake at night worried about. We make payments on a weekly schedule & we've upped our payments every year when we renew so that we're paying it down faster each year. We're now paying 85% of the principal off with every payment. We have 2 plans: stay here & finish paying off the mortgage OR sell, build on our acreage (without a mortgage because our land was paid for years ago), then eventually sell & buy a small condo here & our main home on Salt Spring Island. The second plan gains us more financially but we also love this house & our neighborhood. We can't completely leave this community forever as we have created a legacy project here & we have family but we're open to having two homes down the road, as long as we can do both without a mortgage. And Salt Spring has been our dream since we were both 18 ....
Back to our total debt. The rest is our car loan & our roof, sitting at a combined total of $28,175. Both will be done in the next 24 months, the roof by this October. At that point, except for the planned kitchen remodel, we will be just dealing with the mortgage. Kent's leased car goes back in 2015, at which point we'll decide then if we'll continue to lease (bonus for him now) or buy. But not something to even think about for now!
That's our current tally!!
congrats on making it till payday!!! You are kicking butt on your debt repayment. At one time we were going to purchase a 2nd home but decided against it when I knew I could never do all the upkeep on 2 homes, keeping up one is hard enough!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Debby! I think 2 will be ok. One will be a condo, so no worries about yardwork & maintenance. And truly, we would only have minimal "stuff" there as we'd be traveling in to take care of business, visit, then head home again. Our main home would be on the island & with just the 2 of us at that time, should be manageable. The hard part will be 2 utilities, 2 taxes, etc. But as long as we can do it without mortgage payments, I think the bonus of being able to stay connected to the community we have become ingrained in & live in the community by the sea we crave will be the best of both for us!
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend.
Wow!! Good for you! It sounds like you're doing awesome! Keep it up!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Carla. It's hard going from "spend as we want to" to "accounting for every penny & not letting our account go into overdraft" but we're getting there!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good representation of your income and expenditures. You get to see the actual digits of where your income goes every month, and if you are keeping enough for savings. This helps a lot with budgeting your salary. Very smart! ^___^
ReplyDeleteEustolia Nitta