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January 2018 Update

January 9th, 2018 at 03:59 pm

Things are moving right along on auto pilot.

Mortgage:

$ 138,453.73 December 2017
- $379.47 Regular Principal
- $150.00 Additional Principal
____________
$ 137,924.26 January 2018

Now I want to see the balance in the $120K's!

EF:

$ 7,000.00 December 2017
+ $1,000.00 January 2018
____________
$ 8,000.00 January 2018

New Vehicle Fund (NVF):

$ 7,830.00 November 2017
+ $830.00 December 2017
____________
$ 8,660.00 December 2017

Retirement:

Currently have $400/ mo. contributions toward ROTH IRAs, split $200/$200 for DW and I. We may increase that by $50 each this year.

I may also increase my 457 contributions from 5% to 10%. This may happen mid year when I should settle on a wage renegotiation, +$6-8K/ yr. I'll have to double check to see if DW maximizes her employee match (6%), if not we will reevaluate that as well to seek maximum benefit.

Mortgage, FE, 2016 Taxes

February 2nd, 2017 at 05:12 pm

Mortgage:

$ 144,141.96 January 2017
- $356.96 Regular Principal
- $150.00 Additional Principal
____________
$143,635.00 February 2017

Finally 78% LTV! Monthly Mortgage Insurance cancellation in the works!

EF:

$ 4,000 January 2017
+ 1,000 Added
_______
$ 5,000 February 2017

2016 Taxes:

Ouch, did our taxes, but did not finalize, we owe Feds $1,800 and NYS $200. We have moved into another tax bracket and will adjust withholding as we both currently claim Fed M-0 and NYS M-0. Yeah, so we will split the additional withholding amount request between DW and I for 2017 pay check as we make very similar wages. I don't have a problem as March 2017 DW gets an "Extra" paycheck and will pay utilizing those funds, and should cover 90% and will make the difference up with cash flow. Bummer, but oh well, as that "Extra" check could have went toward something else.

Mortgage Payment - August 2016

August 2nd, 2016 at 01:00 pm

$ 147,710.17 July 2016
- $342.83 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$146,667.34 August 2016

Mortgage Payment - July 2016

July 5th, 2016 at 01:28 pm

$148,748.89 June 2016
- $338.72 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$147,710.17 July 2016

Mortgage Payment - June 2016

June 2nd, 2016 at 04:10 pm

$149,783.52 May 2016
- $334.63 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$148,748.89 June 2016

Mortgage Payment - May 2016

May 2nd, 2016 at 03:20 pm

$150,814.07 April 2016
- $330.55 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$149,783.52 May 2016

Milestone! Finally in the $140K's!

Mortgage Payment - April 2016

April 4th, 2016 at 01:16 pm

$151,840.55 March 2016
- $326.48 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$150,814.07 April 2016

Mortgage Payment - March 2016

March 2nd, 2016 at 12:53 pm

$152,862.99 February 2016
- $322.44 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$151,840.55 March 2016

Mortgage Payment - February 2016

February 2nd, 2016 at 01:11 pm

$153,881.40 January 2016
- $318.41 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$152,862.99 February 2016

Mortgage Payment - January 2016

January 4th, 2016 at 02:40 pm

$154,895.79 December 2015
- $314.39 Regular Principal
- $700.00 Additional Principal
____________
$153,881.40 January 2016

Mortgage Payment - December 2015

December 2nd, 2015 at 05:55 pm

$155,806.58 November 2015
- $310.79 Regular Principal
- $600.00 Additional Principal
____________
$154,895.79 December 2015

5 Years In!

November 25th, 2015 at 08:42 pm

About 10 days ago my wife and I purchased our first home 5 years ago, currently worth less than we paid and still owe, probably by a substantial amount, but oh well. Let me get to the numbers. We haven't always put extra money to the mortgage during those 5 years, but have consistently (and will continue assuming we remain gainfully employed) for the past 24 months.

Original Amortization to Date:
Interest: $40,534.31
Principal: $15,116.89

Current Amortization to Date:
Interest: $40,158.02
Principal: $22,908.18

I am not sure what I was thinking, but I was expecting more shaved off in total interest, which amounts to a savings of $376.29. Principal paid is, obviously more reflective, of an additional $7,791.29 that would have been added to today's balance if we hadn't paid any extra.

Pretty interesting to see, but this year is the first we paid more in Principal than in Interest, albeit forced. Feels good in a way, next year will be better!

Mortgage Payment - November 2015

November 2nd, 2015 at 01:20 pm

$156,713.77 October 2015
- $307.19 Regular Principal
- $600.00 Additional Principal
____________
$155,806.58 November 2015

Mortgage Payment - October 2015

October 1st, 2015 at 02:02 pm

$157,617.39 September 2015
- $303.62 Regular Principal
- $600.00 Additional Principal
____________
$156,713.77 October 2015

Mortgage Payment

September 2nd, 2015 at 02:06 pm

$158,517.45 August 2015
- $300.06 Regular Principal
- $600.00 Additional Principal
____________
$157,617.39 September 2015

April 2015 Mortgage Payment and EF

April 2nd, 2015 at 03:18 pm

Mortgage:

$161,235.37 March 2015
- $289.30 Regular Principal
- $250.00 Additional Principal
____________
$160,696.07 April 2015

EF:

$3,000 Beginning Balance
+$4,000 DW Base Retro Pay
_______
$7,000 Ending Balance

DW will be receiving more retro next pay check, they split her base pay retro from her additional certification pay retro.

Also updated Retirement numbers on side bar for Q1 2015.

Random Updates

March 5th, 2014 at 01:13 pm

I'll keep this short, my posts are usually to the point, so this one won't be any different!

1. Our new appliances. We received 3/4 of them, the fridge should be delivered today, if not, I feel sorry for the store that will have to deal with DW! We have been told many conflicting things regarding the fridge delivery and she has had enough!

2. The "NYS Surcharge" that showed up on an in-patient hospital bill late last year, well that reimbursement finally came to fruition. HR initially said it was our responsibility, well that is not what my contract states at work; $0 out-of-pocket for in-patient. I submitted all my evidence to the legal department here at work, and finally the employer was directed to reimburse me. $389 to the new appliances!

3. $100 to mortgage principal for 3/2014 payment! Still above my goal by double each month. $380 extra so far this year.

4. Sold our old fridge for $100 and posting old microwave for $125 on craigslist. Our out-of-pocket expense on these new appliances are low compared to their final price after taxes!

5. Got both NYS and Fed tax refunds.

6. Noticed the price of the new fridge and stove (already was delivered) went even lower on-line, we got the store to honor those new prices. $124 came back!

7. DW has an interview on Thursday that sounds really promising. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but both our ROTH's could be fully funded this year and exceed our EF funding goal. If she does as her income would grow at least twice. Cool to think about.

8. I'm not a big fan of Zillow "Zestimates", I take it with a grain of salt, but I do look at the trend of our "zestimate" and compare it to local actual trends of home values and sales, adjust for bedroom count, baths, lot size, location etc. I estimate we could sell easily for $159K-162K. "Zestimate" shows a value of $154K and has started to level out around that number nicely. We owe $167.2K, still a bummer. $8K under is a lot better than almost $30K we were looking at 2 years ago. I'd rather be in a position we could liquidate if needed and not owe anything at closing, even if we lost money from original purchase price and/or updates.

Ah well, that's it for now!

Escrow Frustration, It Has To Go!

February 18th, 2014 at 01:33 am

I've blogged before regarding how our mortgage escrow company pays our City property tax in Quarterly Installments, but the City charges an installment fee to utilize that method. I usually have to go through hoops to get them to reimburse me as it is not our problem or choice they do so. Well, yet again, 4th year in a row they continue to do their "normal" practice. I called them up and it wasn't pretty needless to say, I've had enough. They finally blamed it on the "tax authority" and gave me the contact info as according to them, the "tax authority" requests the taxes be paid in such manor. Well, it is our money in that account, not theirs, I say how the money is spent!

Anyway, I'm tired of it, the mortgage will be going quickly as humanly possible. We had already made a goal of at least $50/mo. toward the mortgage for 2014, we want to escrow ourselves, I am tired watching their every move like a hawk.

Extra payments so far this year:
Jan = $115.00
Feb = $165.00
Mar = $310+$750(tax refund)+$300(CU Cash Rewards)

Auto Loan Deteriorating!

January 25th, 2014 at 06:12 pm

The Auto Loan regular payment posted yesterday and bring it down to:

Regular Payment: $321.70
Amount to Interest: $6.12
Principle: $315.58
Total Remaining: $1,647.64

Loan Details:
2010 Honda Civic LX 4 Door Sedan
Loan Origination Date: 12/2011 $14,300
Loan Length: 48 Months

Currently at month 26 of loan, therefore, we are 22 months ahead!!

Will be paid off by month 30 (at most!), or 1.5 years (at least) early!

Mortgage and Auto Loan Get a Happy New Year!

January 1st, 2014 at 02:56 pm

Sent $115.00 extra to mortgage principal and $275 extra to auto loan principal!

Both 'thousand place' digits changed, even though it was intentional! Haha!

Sitting at:

Mortgage - $167,998.42
Auto Loan - $1,994.11

In addition, the 'ten thousand' digit changed on our total debt, which is just the two added together, also intentional, which is why I took advantage of this whole "unique" situation!

Total Debt - $169,992.53

Happy New Year!

2014 Goals

December 24th, 2013 at 06:01 pm

It's that time again; 2014 Goals!

Debt Service:

1. Auto Loan paid off by June 2014. This will actually happen by itself with regular payments, which will be 18 months early on our 48 month loan. Once it gets down below $1,000 I may reevaluate with a lump sum payoff. Right now, it costing us less than $6/ mo. in interest.

2. Mortgage principal only payments. Sending $50/ mo. additional principal only payments for 2014. I have automatic payments set-up from our savings account.

Retirement/ Savings:

1. ROTH IRA (ME), fund $50/ mo. I have automatic contributions set-up from our savings account.

2. ROTH IRA (DW), fund $50/ mo. I have automatic contributions set-up from our savings account.

3. Emergency Fund to $10,000.

Home Improvements:

1. Fence for rear yard. DIY project. $1,500-2,500 depending on materials used.

I made the goals a little more accessible this year. I had hoped to have the auto loan paid off six months ago, but other things came up and DW switched job to a much less stressful one, but at the expense of less wages.

Here's to 2014! Smile

Just a Quick Update

October 29th, 2013 at 02:20 pm

Our Auto Loan had a minor milestone of under the $3K mark! I did add $55 to principal only for that to happen. I get an "extra" paycheck extremely early in 2014, January to be exact, so a good chunk will most likely be going to the Auto Loan. Once it is down around $1300 is probably when a lump sum pay off will occur.

The Mortgage also had a minor milestone of under the $169K mark this month. Not much progress there at all besides regular payments. There is a home for sale a street over that is very similar in size and style to ours that is listed for $169K, so I will keep an eye on final sale price once and if it sells. I expect high $150's low $160's.

The reduction of Verizon services is already paying off, the first bill saw a savings of $61, so that works for me.

DW changed jobs, less hourly pay, less hours until January 1 and much less stress. After that, a raise and back to 30-35 hours instead of the current 25.5 hours. So the dept shovel has been reduced a bit, for the short term. However, the new job at the Dental office does provide opportunity for a monthly bonus of $500-$5,000, so in reality, the effective pay could be significantly more than her previous employer. There is also a yearly bonus on top. I just had to rework our budget schedule as she now gets paid weekly and not bi-weekly.

Extra to Auto Loan

September 13th, 2013 at 07:17 pm

DW got her Chase Sapphire Preferred card statement with the bonus points. Also sent in the auto insurance policy net difference with it, so, $700 total went to the auto loan.

$3,664.42 remaining.

$500 will be sent toward the end of the month when my other Chase CC sign-up bonus hits.

In addition, the regular September 2013 payment will put it under $3,000 by end of month!

Getting Impatient with the Auto Loan

July 8th, 2013 at 05:54 pm

The auto loan is at an amount that we could just pay off immediately if we wanted. I am tired of waiting for each months payment, but retiring the loan now would leave our EF way too low, but still tempting. Next month is 3 pay periods for us which means an extra ~$2,000 to savings on top of our normal amount. My plan is to bring loan under $4K after August regular payment and additional $400 to principle. We also want to increase our EF to $10K by December 2013. I don't think we can have both and the auto loan is only costing us $14 a month in interest. Of course that gets less with each payment, but I just want to be done with it! At that point we would only have the mortgage!

Just a Wacky Wednesday Update

June 5th, 2013 at 04:43 pm

Our central air was installed last Friday and works great. It is nice to have the whole house cool and dehumidified rather than just the immediate room as with a window air conditioner.

Speaking of the window air conditioner, we listed it on Craigslist and sold it last night for $175. I will deposit that tonight and put that toward the principal on the car loan so that it will be below $5K after regular payment hits June 24. I will be sure to blog that milestone separate as well! Haha!

DW bday is June 26, so she asked for a Fitbit One, so they were on sale for $10 off. We purchased at Best Buy and they guy asked if we were using a Best Buy credit card. We said we didn't have one, and asked if we wanted to sign up. I asked if there was any incentive and it was $20 off current purchase if approved. So after we were approved, we walked out spending $75 after tax on a $99 purchase before tax! Plus, we didn't need to use that card to pay for it! Now, just another card with a ridiculous amount of credit for a retail store I need to cancel. Haha!

Speaking of credit cards, the remaining $2,000 balance of the central air was able to be charged to my Chase Freedom card. We will have no problems paying that before it is due by July 12 or so. I will use my existing $65 in rewards as a statement credit so only really $1,935 will really be due!

I need to renew my NYS drivers license by June 14 as it expires this year, which is $80.50. Again, no issue paying that, but those little things like that tick me off sometimes!


Mortgage Under $170K Milestone!

June 3rd, 2013 at 12:25 pm

Our June 1, 2013 payment posted and the balance is under $170,000!

Balance: $169,919.19!

Yay!

Mortgage Almost Under $170K!

May 2nd, 2013 at 12:58 am

It looks like the mortgage will be under $170K next payment on June 1, 2013! I can't wait to see that $169,xxx number.

Too bad we are underwater by a good $40K though.

I am going to try to have auto loan under $5K by June 24, 2013.

November 2012 Update

November 26th, 2012 at 05:48 pm

So November 24 the auto loan hit and was at about $8,080. I could not stand to see it that close to being under $8K, so I transferred an additional $115 to bring it to about $7,965! Even with December interest it will not be above $8K ever again! So 44% paid off in 11 months!

Last post I wanted to be 50% paid in 12 months, but may be at 48%. We also wanted $6K in the EF by December 31. We can't have both though.

We have $600 budgeted for Christmas spending this year. We are on budget so far on that.

We did rescue a dog three weeks ago, our first dog at that. We have a cat we adopted 2 years ago as well. The dog is a 2.5 year old Pomeranian mix. She came spayed, micro chipped, up-to-date on shots. The donation was $250 and spend about $250 on supplies etc. That we did not budget for, main reason we can't have both $6 in EF and 50% auto loan payoff in 12 months. She is a cutie though.

The Phase 4 of 5 windows are installed and look great! Just the basement left for some time in 2013.

Only random (hopefully) expenses remaining this year is NYS auto inspection for $21 on my wife's car and NYS registration renewal on my car for about $120.

I expect the cc bill to be about $4K from all the above, so when I get it, funds will be transferred to pay it in full.

Q1 2012 Progress

March 27th, 2012 at 03:19 pm

So, I figured I would write this up now. A little less than a week early I know, but I may not have time to do so this weekend.

Auto:

2010 Honda Civic loan, purchased used 12/2011.

12/11 - $14,300
01/12 - $14,040
02/12 - $13,750
03/12 - $11,775

There was a total of $1,700 extra applied to principal only payments applied during Q1 2012.

Home Improvements:

South Windows - $2,450 Q1 2012 [x]
North Windows - $1,800 Q4 2011 [x]

West windows most likely Q2 2012. East windows most likely Q3 2012. That leaves basement for Q4 2012, or Q1 2013.

Mortgage:

Well, I stopped prepayments to focus on auto loan. May make a larger principal payment in December to bring it under 170K. Yeah, I want to see a 16x,xxx number!