Our Mortgage History In Brief

The American dream.....homeownership. I remember the joy and the anxiety mixed together on the day we signed the papers for our first house. I was thrilled to be able to have a permanent place that was considered ours, and yet, I realized that there was a great deal of responsibility heading our way. Now looking back, I also realize that I was really ignorant about the financial aspect of owning a home.
We went the typical route when we applied for our 1st mortgage, a conventional, 30 year loan. We didn't have enough cash saved to foot the 20% down bill, so we took out PMI insurance. After living in our house for 2 1/2 years, we were able to drop the PMI coverage. It wasn't until then, that I even realized the difference it made to not have to pay that extra money every month.
So, when we went to take out a loan for our next home (we had outgrown our starter house after our second child was born), PMI insurance was just not an option. My husband figured out a way to avoid paying it by taking out a second loan to cover the amount we were short for our 20% down payment. We still had to pay the extra money every month, but we didn't have to go through the hassle of dealing with getting rid of the PMI insurance.
This may sound crazy, but that second loan ended up being a godsend for us. We ended up only paying on this loan for 9 months due to a small inheritance that we came into. However, the best part about it was that it forced us to live on less for that short period of time. Chad calculated the difference it would be for us to switch to a 15 year loan and it happened to be the same amount we had been paying for the 1st and 2nd mortgage each month. We figured if we did it for 9 months, then we could do it for 15 years or hopefully even less.
By the way, not everyone thought that switching to a 15 year mortgage was such a good idea. Some people questioned the rationality of paying off a mortgage in half the time when it could be used as a tax right off for so many years. Others thought it was a bad idea because if something happened to my husband's job, than it would be more difficult to pay the higher monthly mortgage than if we stuck with the less costly 30 year.
Believe me, it would have been so much easier to have an extra $400 in our pockets every month if we would've stayed with the 30 year loan. However, we looked at the big picture on this one. Down the road we saw a paid for house and a much larger amount of cash we would have every month for the rest of our lives, if we could only get through a few tight years.
This was our "a-ha" moment. We finally figured out that if we could have no debt what so ever, than we could live a life free of financial worries. We decided together that we were going to make it our priority to pay off our mortgage as soon as possible.
Our goal was and still is to pay off our mortgage before our 40th birthday. We made that goal when we were 31 years old and now we have only 41/2 years left in our timeline to pay it off. We think we can, we think we can.

It all began at the first house.

My journey began around 12 or 13 years ago. I had just gotten my first job after college and purchased my first house. It wasn't much but that 800 square feet was mine. It was a great location just off the Mississippi river in NE Mpls. A working class type area with just a couple of troublesome neighbors. But for $32000 it was a steal. I think everyone remembers coming out of school and getting their first job. Man $22000 per year...I'm loaded. Then comes the bills. My house was not a money pit by any means. But the chore of trying to get stuff to fill it killed my credit cards and what little money was coming in. My buddy Bian and his girl friend(now wife) moved in with me and we all decided to split the bills and my mortgage payment. It was a good deal for both of us and it worked great. A year or two down the line they moved out to get their own space. And then my problems really surfaced. Without my roomies, I was short on money and needed help fast. Lucky enough for me, this was the closest I would come to rock bottom. And I started to rethink my finances and try to turn it around. I am not sure where this blog thing will take our discussions or lead us. But I hope that my wife and I have a place to put down and work out ideas(crazy or not) and to hopefully hear from others to share the journey. Please feel free to drop comments and compare thoughts and ideas. This is my main goal. My wife and I constantly are trying to find the one thing we can do more to speed up the process and get rid of the balance of our debt. We will most likely be pitching things back and forth through some of our writings. I will most likely ramble on and take discussions in different directions at the drop of a hat. My mind works that way even though I am fairly regimented in my daily life. Oh well, good start. I just always think back to the first house and some of the financial pain that I felt. I turned quickly though and started to push my soon to be wife the same direction. I am sure in time you will see that she is now much more money conscientious than I. We have definitely traded roles over the almost 10 year journey.

Who We Are

We are your typical Middle Class family living in Suburbiaville, U.S.A. We have 2 young, school age kids, and we have lived for the most part, on one salary. We decided years ago to live life without as much debt as possible. We have discovered through the years that in order to live such a life, we must make the most out of the income we earn.

Some people think that we are "cheap" due to the financial decisions we make on a daily basis. Others think that we are simple "lucky" when it comes to money matters. Frankly my dear, we don't care about what others think about our lifestyle choices. If we were so worried about keeping up with the Jones, we would be living from paycheck to paycheck.

The decisions we make regarding finances always take into consideration time, cost, and satisfaction. We truly analyze purchases, investment opportunities, volunteer commitments, and employment to the nth degree. We realize we're not perfect and we admit that we've definitely made mistakes with our money. However, we have learned many beneficial lessons in regards to money and others should benefit from this knowledge. Think of our blog as a resource for yourself and/or your family if you are looking for ways to save money. We are more than happy to share our money saving tips and financial wisdom with you.

Most importantly, our ultimate goal for creating this blog is to create a journal for our children and their children about our family's journey to debt freedom. Our goal is to be completely debt-free in 5 years. Along the way we will encounter the joys and pains of spending, saving, giving, and investing.