On 11/4/19 I paid an extra $419.04 to my principal which puts my balance down to $130, 477.92.
So far with regular monthly payments I have paid off almost $10,000.00 since my very first house payment in April 2019 (8 months). If I wouldn’t have made extra payments, my balance would be $138,603.13 with still 29 and ¾ months left on the mortgage. A difference of $8,125.21 and 26 years left on the mortgage. I have the discipline to make my 30 year mortgage into a 15 year mortgage and more. I am hoping for another 3 years to have it paid off, that’s an average of $43,333.33 per year or an average of $3611.11 per month. Considering I am a single taxpayer, making a good living, I pay high taxes (California is one of the highest taxed states with the highest poverty rates = my money goes to poor people who don’t want to work for a living – my opinion), I don’t bring home much from my paycheck. I will have to figure out how to be in a lower tax bracket. I try to put as much as possible into my TSP (government for 401k) retirement plan, but if I put the max in, I wouldn’t have hardly anything left to live on.
Dave Ramsey recommends that once you are in Baby Step 4 to put 15% of your income into your retirement plan, then you can start paying off your mortgage (unless you have kids then you need to start saving for college). So since I started saving for retirement late I currently put up to 19% into my retirement.
If I can do this, so can you. All it takes is the drive and determination to be successful. Again, if a single person who is frugal, but still lives life (hike, bike, movies, etc) can do it, anyone can.
Let me know how you’re paying down your mortgage. Leave a comment below!
Here’s to reading on!
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No, that is not me and my boyfriend (BF) walking on the beach. We both have longer hair! That is a free picture from the internet.
