January 2010 Mortgage Reduction Report

We have just sat down and made our final prepayment for the month of January.  I am happy to say that we were able to come up with $5,500 this month to put towards the mortgage.  That is $778 more than what is needed to meet our goal.  I changed our board and we have now saved $160,000 in interest on our mortgage.  That is simply incredible!

Febuary, March and April may be tight months and I an not anticipating being able to make extra mortgage payments.  I do want to hold off as we have a big bill coming in March, a vacation to pay for and I am anticipating a fairly hefty tax bill.  Such is life!

December 2009 Mortgage Reduction Report

2009 is pretty much behind us now and we can reflect on the past 12 months. Looking back I am impressed with the goal we have set to pay off our $316,000 mortgage in 5 years but wonder if we will be able to make it happen. Shoot for the stars and if you hit the moon you have still done very well.

Our additional payment in December was limited to $2,800. Although this is short of our $4,700 monthly goal it does bring our mortgage balance under $250K which is quite the accomplishment considering that we started at $316K in August 2008.

In 2009 we made a total of $71,675.86 in mortgage payments. There were bi-weekly payments of $760.61 totaling $19,775.86 and additional mortgage payments of $51,900.00. In 17 months of payments we have brought our original mortgage balance down 21%. If we compare this to our original amortization period of 40 years we have a projected savings of $150K in interest and a new amortization period of 21.4 years if we do not make any more additional payments. I am very impressed with our progress.

I look forward to 2010 although I know we will have challenges meeting our monthly goal of an additional $4,700 put down against the mortgage. There are areas in our financial lives that can be improved. We should be able to save some money by reducing our restaurant meals. I also be car pooling to and from work for a majority of 2010 and that should save me $100 a month.

We look forward to sharing our progress with you in 2010.

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.

October 2009 Mortgage Reduction Report

October is coming to an end and we were able to make a prepayment of $4200 on our mortgage for the month. We have missed the mark of $4700 and not made up any of the shortfall in September. This leaves us with a prepayment short fall of $2700 year to date.

A big expense got in the way this month, but was worth it. The desktop computer we were using was 4 years old and it was time for a new one. With the government allowing a Capital Cost Allowance of 100% this year on computers for businesses the purchase just made sense. It will be a good deduction for my taxes.

I will be receiving some business income in November and we are hoping we can play catch up a bit. Putting down $6000 may be achievable. Looking ahead to Christmas and tax time there will be some expenses that may not allow for us to prepay the full $4700 monthly. C’est la vie!

The mortgage balance at the end of October is a little over $258,000. We have now paid off 18.5% of our original balance. Not too bad, considering we have only been making payments for 15 months.

September 2009 Mortgage Reduction Report

With the neighbours not yet giving us a bill for the fence and us not prepaying a service we use (switched to monthly) we came up with $2500 to make an additional mortgage payment. We were $2200 short this month due to a delay in my business income which should be coming in the next couple of weeks.

Business has slowed down and I am not yet expecting any business income in October. It may be tight finding the $4700 next month especially because I want to make up the $2200 missed this month. Hopefully I can generate some business income in the meantime to help out.

The mortgage balance at the end of September is a little under $263,000. Compared to our original mortgage amortization of 40 years we are now down to 23 years and have saved just under $130,000 in interest.

To wrap up, we have now paid off 17% of our original balance and are basically on track to meet our goal.