Earn, Save, and Live Joyfully.
A member of the family is house hunting. His goal is to find a well priced home with a minimum of five bedrooms and four bathrooms. So far he seems most interested in houses with at least 2500 square feet. A few of the houses have been more than double the size of mine, which … Read more
It has been nearly three years since I left the work force. While I wake up every morning feeling happy about my place in this world my husband wakes up feeling miserable. Quite frankly he doesn’t like his job. He wakes up slowly and trudges off to work praising the weekends and telling me they never come … Read more
Two years after graduating from college I bought a house. For once in my life I didn’t struggle to make a decision. I acquired financing with my boyfriend and signed my name on the dotted line five days after turning twenty-two. The down payment came in part from money I’d saved in college. The rest came from a … Read more
Over the past twelve years my husband and I have applied for home loans nine separate times. Does that seem slightly insane to anyone other than me? Our primary home was purchased in 2001 for $260,000. Here are the details for the original loan and each refinance that followed. Date Loan Amount Term Rate Note … Read more
If you were about to pay off your mortgage would you throw a party to celebrate? It’s an interesting question for me. Although my last post may have been viewed as bragging, (at least I received one email letting me know it was perceived that way), I am not usually one to toot my own horn … Read more
Last week I asked my readers if they would accept a gift from their parents. I wrote the post after learning of a friend who is about to receive a beach home from his folks. I appreciate the honest comments and emails that were sent to me. I wonder if I shouldn’t have also asked … Read more
We considered refinancing our home loans quite a few times over the last few years. We refinanced both of our properties in 2009, but rates continued to fall to historical lows between now and then. We went back and forth about paying extra principal or refinancing a couple of times. Finally as the rates continued … Read more
It’s official… 10 years and 2 months from now my husband and I should be mortgage free. We recently refinanced our beach home from a 15 year fixed mortgage at 4.5% to a 10 year fixed at 3.5% (Note: interest rates on second homes are typically higher than on primary residences.) In the next month … Read more
I’d like to say I don’t have any debt, but for now my desire and reality are not one and the same. $600,000 is an enormous amount of money and it’s roughly how much I currently owe. In fact, it’s such a large sum that it’s difficult to wrap my head around. How on earth … Read more
It seems as though my husband and I won’t be refinancing after all. I considered shrinking our mortgage from 15 to 10 years, but decided that the cash flow issues were not worth the additional interest savings. At the end of the day I simply couldn’t convince myself to take on more monthly payments … Read more