Monday 14 May 2012

New Mortgage Payment

We renewed our mortgage on Friday & at the same time, increased our payments again. We started at $200 a week about 5 years ago, increased that to $225 a week about 3 years ago, then uppped it again to $250 a week last year when Kent went back to the corporate world. On Friday, we increased the payments again to $275 a week, starting next week. Still comfortable for our budget & decreased the time left on our mortgage from 8 years, 6 months to 7 years, 4 months. We're now paying mostly principle, with a bit of interest in there. Love seeing the numbers decreasing each week. Currently, we owe just a bit over $96,000. By this time next year, we'll owe just under $84,000.

Our plan is to finish the renovations, put it on the market, build our new house out in the country & become completely mortgage free in the process. We can do this because we bought our land 12 years ago. At that time, land was just starting to increase in value. The acreage was listed for $65,000 but we paid an even $40,000. Now it's worth almost $300,000 & is on the rise. As we only need to pay for the services & the construction of the new house, the equity in our home & our savings will cover the costs, as long as we don't crazy with size & upgrades. It's going to be a fine line as we do want to build a good sized home & we'll want certain features, like granite counters & wood floors, as well as energy efficiency. Keeping our budget realistic & giving ourselves some "wiggle room" for the extras we may decide in the end we just have to have will be the key.

Not sure exactly when we'll build. Life keeps getting in the way. For now, we keep loving this house & fixing it up along the way.

2 comments:

  1. Ha, Thanks for this post, I was thinking I am the only one in the world who looks forward to the mortage payment coming in the mail each month so I can see how low it's getting!! We hope to have it paid off in less than 4 years if things go as planned, love how much we are saving on intrest

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  2. Thanks Debby. I used to work in mortgages & loved to see those balances for my clients go down, despite the pressure to upsell & help customers max out their credit. Great news that you'll be done in 4 short years! What will you do with your extra funds each month?

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