November 2009 Mortgage Reduction Report
November is almost behind us and we did not quite reach the goal of prepaying $4700 this month. We did manage to put down an additional $4000 which I am happy with. That leaves us $3400 short of our goal for the last three months.
This leads us into December and we are not expecting to make our goal of a $4700 mortgage prepayment. We have a higher than normal credit card bill as we rewarded ourselves last month with a new couch. A trip to Regina to visit my parents has also been factored into next month. The only goal for December is to go into the New Year with a mortgage balance under $250K. With a $2800 prepayment we will be able to get this done.
With a balance of approximately $253,500 we have been able to pay off 20% of our mortgage. If we were to stop making our prepayments we would have a remaining amortization of 21.8 years and have a projected savings of $146K.
We are still on pace to pay off our mortgage in 5 years and only pay $43K in interest. I am interested to look at our 2009 gross income and see what percentage we had dedicated to the mortgage and total housing costs.
Hi sslinn,
Every now and then I end up reading your posts on this blog (redirecting myself from rfd) and can only appreciate you posting your life here. it’s great to see you have these agressive goals in life and at the same time you find time and money to balance your lifestyle.
This is certainly inspiring and I will most certainly see what is the best we can do as we get in to our first ever debt (Mortgage).
Currently as you may have seen in some of my posts, we are leaning towards 1 year fixed at 1.99% or may be 1.80% and either continue renewing for 1 year term or switch to variable. Without worrying much about where rates would be a year from now, what do you think of this strategy.
Hi, and thanks for your feedback. I have learned that you need to have a balance with everything.
Right now personally I think it is a crap shoot as which is the best way to go for a mortgage. Fixed, variable, short term, long term?? It is more about your risk tolerance and individual circumstances. If this is your first home there is nothing wrong with taking a 5 year rate just under 4% and knowing what your payment will be over the next five years. There is some security with that. If you are going to take your one year term ensure that you are making the same payments that you would at 5% and that will offset some of the interest rate risk. Also ensure that you have adequate prepayment privileges and that you take advantage of them.