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Archive for January, 2017

Updates!

January 26th, 2017 at 04:53 pm

It has been about 4 months or so since my last update, which have mostly been mortgage pre-payment updates, but some things have changed and thought I would share.

The mortgage pre-payment is still moving forward, but the $700 extra (for a total $1,000 off principal each payment) has been reduced to $150 (for a total of $500 off principal each payment). That was done in anticipation of the Holidays and potentially replacing my vehicle in the near future, as well as increasing our cash on hand to possibly move to a larger home sometime in the next 3-5 years. You may be asking why put additional to the mortgage? Mortgage payoff is pretty much what we would realize after a sale, if sold in the next couple of months. Mortgage regulations state, that I have read anyway, require 30% equity in order consider the rents on the current home to be considered income for a new mortgage loan application. Even if we don't rent, I still would like to have options.

Finally received a promotion at work, so 25% increase in base yearly pay is nice, but not effective until Jan 30, 2017, few days left. The management package, no longer union employee, is nice and savings on health insurance alone is a nice net in the pay check. The ability to cash out 2 weeks vacation and 2 weeks compensatory time are nice, which I will be doing for additional monies realized. Nice to see a decent "raise" after going without from 2009 to 2015.

I was done paying into the NYS retirement account (414H) back in July 2016, have since been diverting that to NYS Deferred Compensation 403B plan, and increased it from 3% (414H) to 5% (403B). I will most likely increase that after I see a couple checks to know the effect of the promotion and where we want to be.

The Vanguard ROTH IRA is doing great, just need to look into increasing, which was about 50% funded for both DW and I in 2016.

DW also signed up for her company 401K 6% match, for a total of 12%, she was able to get the match after 2 years of employment. She is up for a 5% raise in the next couple months.