Our mortgage amortization schedule is going in the bin: March 2014 Net Worth Update (+0.75%)
NO SWIFFER NEEDED JUST A FIRE PIT
Yes, that’s right no more checking the amortization schedule on our mortgage to see how far we have come and costs involved with our mortgage.
The time is very near where we start the fire and light up those mortgage papers to say good-bye and good riddance.
Although the last few months of our budget have been filled with unexpected expenses we are still on target to say goodbye to our mortgage, for good.
Next months Net Worth update should be titled, Mortgage free at last…. or something to that effect lol. It’s been a long 5 years in this house but it was worth the sacrifices of using the budget (which is free if you want to download it) to save the money for all the necessities we’ve needed so we can be mortgage free before 40 years of age.
Although we’ve had the money for close to a year to pay the mortgage the exchange rate for the UK is at an all-time high since I moved to Canada back a few years ago now.
I’m pulling the money I have over there while I can. The last thing I want is to lose thousands more dollars because something happens with the exchange rate which to me is just as risky as investing your money.
Sure back in early 2007 my money was worth well over double when I came to Canada and I was loving every minute of it. Don’t let that excitement get you too cozy though because what goes up will come down and that is what we learned. Even though we’ve lost money since then and learned lessons along the way we know now that we still made the right decisions to wait it out.
I won’t get too much into it as I’ll save the juicy details for next months post.
We have a buyer
The interesting news for this month is that we received a letter from a real estate agent who has buyers for our home. I guess all my fancy landscaping and outside maintenance really does look swanky. See, landscaping on a budget can be done and impress even strangers into wanting to buy your home even if they haven’t been in it.
We’re not too surprised since we live in a sought-after area and our street is compiled of affordable family homes for most younger couples. The agent wants to bring the couple through our home for a private viewing to make sure the inside is as nice as the outside but it’s not finished yet.
We are upgrading pretty much everything and so far it looks 100x better than what we bought it for but with minimal investment. Keeping your house clean, fresh and updated doesn’t have to cost lots but when you get into the realms of renovations you need cash to do it.
We bought the house for less than market value so we have plenty of room for improvements. It’s great the way it is now with bits to take care of inside but we want to modernize it and finish off the basement.
Remember when I talked about buying the big house the other day and how it’s difficult to sell it sometimes because of a limited market well this is what I mean. It’s great when you own a home that you can sell fast because it’s affordable and well-kept but too bad for their clients as we aren’t ready to sell.
I was chatting with one of my Facebook fans the other day and told her that just to get some of the desired features in a home that we don’t have which we can really live without i.e. bigger property, walk-out basement, larger upper level it would cost us about $200,000- $300,000 more dollars on top of what we get for selling this house to pay cash for a newer bigger home in our city.
So just for a few extra hundred square feet in a home that is updated top to bottom we would be paying out the nose and having to look at another dreaded mortgage amortization schedule. No thanks, we’ll just stay right here.
The only way we will move is if you want our house so bad you’ll pay us double… how’s that for a deal! lol..
Amortization schedule
What is an amortization schedule anyways? I’ll tell you in my lame terms so maybe it will make some sense as mortgage jargon for some can get tricky. Don’t say you haven’t trusted someone and just signed on the dotted line.
An amortization calculator is basically a home cost calculator or what your mortgage will cost you over the life of the term or mortgage you have set up with your bank or broker. The calculator you can find free all over the internet and just about every mortgage company offers one for their clients.
You can enter in all your mortgage information and it will give you an amortization schedule which shares with you how long and painful a journey it is to pay off a mortgage when you pay month after month.
You can see how much principle you have or will pay off and of course the dreaded interest that is enough to make anyone bury their head. Mind you mortgage interest rates have been at an all-time low for years now so we can’t complain too much.
I’m sure many of you who owned a home with a mortgage back in the 80’s could share a horror store or two about how high the mortgage interest rates were back then.
I wouldn’t want to look at my amortization schedule back then it would scare me but not deter me from working hard and doing whatever we could to pay off the mortgage as soon as we can.
Sure there are some of you that would never pay off your mortgage because you are investing gurus and you know, that’s great. Some people just don’t know how to invest or want to take risks with their money in hopes they score a return higher than what their mortgage interest rate is.
No one can tell me that they know what the crystal ball will of investing will provide day after day, month after month as it’s based on stats and hope that it gets better hence more returns for the investor.
Many people have been successful that way and hopefully one day that will be us but until we learn more about investing we’ll stick to what we know and that is our mortgage costs us money.
How often do you check your amortization schedule and make changes to speed up the mortgage pay-down process? Do you pay a chunk of you mortgage in bulk each year?
Understanding net worth
What Does Individual Net Worth Mean?
Net Worth is a snap shot of your financial health sort of like a picture or debt to net assets. In simple terms it’s a total of the value of your assets minus your liabilities.
Determining net worth
Net Worth = Assets – Liabilities
Figuring out net worth is fairly easy as long as you know your personal numbers or monthly finances.
Net Worth is simply adding up all your assets (what you own) then taking away your liabilities (what you owe) which will give you a net worth number.
Understanding your net worth will help you determine if you are on track to meeting or beating your personal financial goals. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
Do you know how to calculate your own Net Worth?
Now you can stop asking yourself the question, how do you find out your net worth? Why? It’s easy to determine.
Why not go ahead and calculate your own using our Free Money saving Tool Net worth Calculator (Canadian Budget Binder 2012)
Goals
Below are our 2014 target goals some of which are the same from 2013 and many which are new for 2014. I don’t like to move on to new goals if I have other goals that are unfinished but I also like breathing room and play time if you know what I mean.
I hope by posting them each month it motivates me like it has this past year to get stuff done and reach our target goals with some form of ease although nothing in life is that simple.
I find it’s much easier to be held accountable when I share what we need to do with all of you.
Do you set goals for the year?
Our short-term goals 2014
- First is to pay off our mortgage in full as of April 2014.
This is very near… gone by the end of this month yay! - To renovate the upstairs bathroom
- Re-model the spare bedroom (ie: decor, furniture)-done
- Start working on putting in the new flooring in the living and dining room
- Install a central vacuum system- Bought and on its way!
- Purchase a new washer and dryer
- Purchase all new kitchen appliances
- Purchase 2 medium-sized freezers
- Finish the landscaping in the front and back yards.
- Invest more in our TFSA, RRSP etc.
- Continue to meal plan, create new homemade meals- I’m always whipping up something new in the kitchen (check out all my new recipe index on the blog)
- To sow and grow more vegetables/herbs in the garden to save money- We decided to scale back on this for 2014 summer.
- Learn more about passive income
- To read a new personal finance book
- Learn more about Search Engine Optimization and blogging and how to manage my blog.
This is very near… gone by the end of this month yay!
Our long-term goals 2014
- Finish renovating the entire kitchen
- Finish renovating the entire master bathroom
- Save for a holiday
- Start planning basement renovations (bathroom, bedroom, family room, laundry room, office, storage area.
- Look at new ways to invest our money i.e. rental units
- Continuing to educate ourselves on personal finance and investments
- Continue to network with other like-minded people
- Continue in my new career in hopes of it becoming long-term permanent
Our financial numbers
When budgeting anything is possible, we are proof of that although we still have a long way to go in our journey. These are our numbers and our goals, not a means of comparison towards your own goals to others target goals.
We don’t care how much money others make or if they have a high net worth or if it is lower than ours as it’s not a competition. I hope our experiences perhaps will help guide you along your financial path working towards debt freedom.
Different paths
Not everyone has the same path in life. Some of you may have had to start over like I did or go to school a second time and now have OSAP loans to pay back.
Others may have divorced, lost money in the stock market or other investments, lost a job, fell ill and so on but you can’t let that stop you, I didn’t.
Some of you may have been given trust funds, paid-for homes, paid educations or perks in life that give you a financial kick-start and that’s OK too. Remember what I said, “It’s not about how much money you make, it’s how you save it”.
Focus on you and don’t let the evil eye of money jealousy or keeping up with the Joneses cloud your vision. No one cares about your money as much as you do so don’t waste your energy trying.
The only reason people accumulate wealth is because they know how to save or invest it wisely even if they did inherit money or win the lottery. The smallest improvements should mean big strides in working towards reaching your goals.
Sometimes we have to fail in order to learn and we’ve all been there. Money can be an evil force for some people especially those who are negative towards their own situation.
I urge you to be optimistic and little by little with determination you too should see improvements, if you want that to happen.
Our net worth
We are always looking for ways how to increase our savings and by tracking our net worth these numbers below show us how well we are doing in terms of meeting our target numbers or what areas we should put a bit more focus in.
Net worth updates 2014
Below you can click the links to read past net worth updates to see if we were on target or if we struggled with some of our numbers.
That’s all for this month’s Net Worth update. Check in at the beginning of May to see how we made out in April and what has happened to our finances since.
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At that time, we had 3 small children, one income, and we were in our early thirties (30 & 34).
We borrowed $45k on a $115k house.
You need to decide what is best for your family. For the first 5 years, we used the wood, forced air furnace, that was in the house.It was cheap to run, but it was a lot of work stacking 7 cord wood, each year.After it was paid off, we installed an oil furnace.
Wow, congrats in advance for getting the mortgage paid off this month! This is truly a big accomplishment for you guys!
THanks…. I’m waiting to celebrate until I have officially made the transaction.. that will be the party post of the month for us lol. Cheers Marie!
We lived in our first home for 8 years.It was free and clear by then. We then traded up and bought a larger house, and that was when we had our first mortgage, to cover the difference in price. It started out as a 25 yr mortgage, but with every cash gift we received, tax refund, etc we did pay it down, and it was paid off in 5-6 years. Then we just kept saving our mortgage payment.
Another way to pay off a mortgage faster is to pay weekly, instead of monthly.
We paid weekly as well. We are just not sure if we want to sell and get another mortgage again. Did you stay in the same city or move where it was a bit more affordable to move up in house? Was it worth it looking back? Why?
We moved to a different community, but my husband was still only 20 minutes to work. For the next 10 years, property values stagnated, and then they took off, It has now doubled in price. We have since rented this property out. Yes, it was worth it.
When we were ready to by rental properties, we mortgaged it to provide us with down payments.
Thanks for the feedback. We are still under 40 but are not sure if we want to take that step to buy a bigger house and get another mortgage. I think if I was transferred to city where it was cheaper to live maybe. It’s so costly to buy homes in our area. You must be pretty happy the value has doubled… well worth it!
Congrats on the mortgage payoff! We have a Hoover central vac system and love it. Installing it took a bit of time but wasn’t too difficult. Cleaning the house no longer seems like such a huge chore
I’m just waiting for ours to show up it’s being delivered with all of the parts. Do you have the traps you can sweep into? How do you like them?
We have the wall tube ports that automatically switch on when the vacuum is connected. It’s pretty handy, we used to have a portable vac (Cost $150) and this is much easier. The best part is that the central unit is in the garage so all the dirt, dust etc gets carried out of the house. With the portable vac it just got blown around. The air quality is noticeably better now that we’ve switched. We have a Hoover wind tunnel and would recommend it. Not sure about other models but ours seems pretty solid
Congratulations on your upcoming day 🙂
It really is a great feeling. With our first house, (1982) we didn’t have a mortgage, but rather we built it as we went (you could do that back then). We finished the inside with a personal loan at 21%. Some family and co-workers were really struggling financially when the mortgage rates were high at this time..around 18%. We were pre-kids at this time, so we just concentrated on paying off our debts..with success.
We have since accumulated several mortgages with our rental properties. We haven’t increased our payments, or made any extra ones, but on 4 of them, when the renewal came around, the interest rates had dropped, so we kept the payments the same..which took off a lot of time. Back in 1982 I never thought I’d ever have a mortgage for 3.49 % for 5 years 🙂
That must have been interesting to do Kathryn. Do you still live in the home you built? So over the years you purchased rental units..that was smart to keep the payments the same when the interest rate went down. That’s another way to pay a bit more and get rid of it faster.
Wow, so happy for you….! What an amazing accomplishment, almost there!
Mark
Thanks Mark… once the paperwork is done and the proper research I’ll be doing the celebrating but it’s been a long time coming that’s for sure.
Congratulations on paying off the mortgage!!!!!! Yes we could tell you tales of mortgages in the early 80’s… we got a mortgage as things were on the way up so we didn’t have the brutal rates that happened but our rate was bad enough. We locked in about a year before the record highs. What will happen next time we renew, I don’t know yet but I’m doing some thinking about it so far. Not sure what hubby plans to do there…
I’ve heard of people looking to buy a house without seeing the inside along the lines of what you have been asked…. Maybe the style or something attracted them to your place, or the landscaping like you said. I’d be happy with a house that didn’t need a lot of repairs every time I turn around and has a nice little amount of storage, including in the basement. Having lived my life in older houses a house that is younger than I am would be a treat…..
Oh don’t congratulate us yet… we still have to make it official lol… soon, very soon. I’d love to do a blog post about the interest rate of the 80’s one day. Most people don’t want a house with lots of repairs which is why I want to finish upgrading this house first.
Mr CBB… once the mortgage is paid off, don’t hold a bonfire right away. First, do you own title search to make sure the bank has removed their lien against the property. Second make sure all final charges are thru and the bank isn’t suddenly going to try and charge you some sort of a fee. Keeping all documents for 90 days is a very good idea. I had one mortgage that the bank did not discharge the lien, should have but didn’t and because I had all the documents to prove I had paid out in full… they couldn’t charge me a second discharge fee because their records were already archived. Better safe than sorry. 😀 Congrats to both you and Mrs CBB!
I remember you mentioning that to me before and I didn’t forget. We aren’t with a bank but a lending company so I’ll be sure to make sure everything is sorted out. I think the entire burning session was more a figure of speech meaning we are rid of it finally.. can’t wait. I didn’t know about that title search so thank you for reminding me again. 😉
Wow, CBB! Paying off your mortgage is a huge accomplishment! And having somebody who is interested in buying your house is also exciting, as it just shows that your hard work is paying off. You must be very proud of yourselves.It’s great to see your net worth jump so much each month on that graph. Good job!
Thanks Daisy… I think the anticipation is great but once we are finally rid of it then it will sink in. 🙂
Awesome that the mortgage is going bye-bye! That’s a great feeling, one we just experienced recently as well. It’s so freeing to know that is behind you. It completely changes the look of one’s monthly budget.
I know I can’t wait but I think once it’s all said and done it will feel real. The budget will change however we have some investments we need to catch up so it will be well spent lol.
Hooray for getting the mortgage paid off this month – huge congrats to you guys!!! Very, very happy for you. 🙂
It will be nice to see it gone… I’ll be writing all about it next month to make sure it’s all real lol.
What a great feeling to pay off a mortgage! Congrats!
I hope so… I’ll be letting you all know what it feels like next month.. can’t wait.