Refinancing our House…

A few months ago I saw a pop-up screen to get your credit score online for free.  So, I decided to do that and check our credit scores.  When I met Josh, he had a judgement and some delinquent debt on his credit, and his score was not great.  He worked hard to pay everything off, but his credit was still bad.  It has finally been 10 years so all of that is gone, AND I was amazed that his credit score rose over 150 points!  I immediately started looking into refinancing and getting a better interest rate.  It took me a while to get everything ready, but we closed on our refi last night. 

Keep in mind we had a terrible interest rate and we just got an awesome rate….We owed 26 years on our house loan and we did a refi for a 15 year loan.  Therefore, we just took 9 years off of our loan!  That in itself saved us 108,000!  Our house is barely worth that!  Seriously!  AND, we LOWERED our monthly payment.  Just by about $30.00, but wow!  We took 9 years off our loan and lowered our monthly payment.  We were moe than satisfied with the work of F&M Mortgage and Craig Sanders there.  He was very open about our options, very honest.  He worked around Josh being out of town, and scheduled a last-minute closing for us.  The appraiser did say we had to fix some foundation cracks before we could close and Josh fixed them!  We are so excited and blessed that this all worked out.  God is moving in our lives through this journey to be debt free to glorify Him!

 

 

1/4 of the way there!

Our new balance for our loan is $15,000.  This is still a daunting task to me, but we are moving along.  I know we can do that 3 more times!  Typically, we make these grand goals, like paying this off by the end of the year, because we know there are always weeks with extra money.  Which there are, however, we are trying to focus on fixing a few small things around the house, as well as a some other tasks.  We are currently saving extra money because Josh needs new tires on his truck…which are not cheap.  It’s working out because I am working a lot of extra hours in the morning and we are saving that money for tires.  We need around $800, it should be less, but that’s my goal to save so he can go get what he needs.  Anything left over will go on this debt!

I don’t have time right now, but I have an exciting post I need to write about refinancing our house!  We are really excited!!!!  Stay tuned

20% Paid off!

I am trying to be creative and think of things to get excited about with this debt.  So, this month, I am thrilled that our loan is 20% paid off!  We owe right at $16,000.  I was thinking with paying a little extra we would be further along, but I didn’t do a good job figuring the amount we are paying on interest on the loan.  I was kind of thinking it would be going down, but it’s not like a credit card, where the more you pay in the prinicpal the less interest you have, it’s more like a car loan where you just have a fixed amount of interest. 

I am reading through the chronological Bible again this year, and wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t charge interest to our brothers, and/or forgave our brother’s debts every seven years!  Oh well, we are trucking along.

Struggling a Little…

I didn’t update at the end of February because I found it discouraging to say “Our loan is now $17,000″.  It just seems daunting.  I get a bit depressed at it when I look at the balance.  However, I have to rejoice in the fact that it is $1,000.00 less than is was 29 days before!  Seriously, that is awesome.  It’s just kind of bittersweet I guess.  When I think of this loan and where we were financially and emotionally when we consolidated some debt just to try to make ends meet, and then think where we are now, it is such a blessing.  I will just be so relieved when this debt and the negativity that goes along with it, are GONE! 

I do know that it is going to be a long process.  So, unless we get some huge unexpected check in the mail (haha), the updates for the next year or so are going to be a bit BORING!  We are moving along though.  Sacrificing is still challenging.  However, we are paying our bills, paying our debt payments, and paying cash when things break (Josh’s truck parts last week, tags this week).  It’s never-ending, it’s life.  I am so thankful that we also finally have an emergency fund!

How is your journey going?  Have you started?  Starting is the hardest part!  Good luck!

On to Phase 6/10…

Our next thing to tackle is HUGE!!  We have a personal loan that we had to get as a result of many misfortunes in late 2009/early 2010.  It’s original balance was 20,000.  Now, it’s a little under 18,000.  So, the loan payment is $575.00/month, our debt payment is $590/month.  That makes a total monthly payment of  $1,165.00!  Seriously, when we get this paid off, that is like my income, lol!!  Our expected payoff date is August 2013.  Josh thinks we can pay it off this year!!  I am going to shoot for one year now.  We shall see what God does with this!

As I stated from the beginning, after we pay off a debt, we get to take our debt payment for the next month and do something for the family as a reward.  With the van paid off, our debt payment is now $590.00!  I don’t even know what we do with that, lol.  So, as I think we have every month on the past, we are going to keep on trucking.  We recently funded our initial emergency fund, again, lol.  Right now it’s only around $1,000.00.  Some day, we would like to have 6 months of expenses in there, but I think we pay off debt for now. 

After this, we only have student loans and our house!  I have 2 different student loans and we have an 80/20 house loan.  This process seemed unattainable when we started, but God has blessed us throughout this entire year.  He has even put us a few months ahead of schedule!  It’s a little depressing to know that we were completely debt free (except our house and student loans) when Carter was born (almost 6 years ago).  However, life happened in those years.  We had three children, lots of medical bills, job changes for both Josh and myself, and everything else.  It only makes us more disciplined and stronger.

Thanks for joining us on our journey to become debt free and please start your own!  Even if your only debt is your house, you can probably pay it off in a few years.  If you are drowning in debt, we have been there!  Start small and go from there.  All for the glory of God!

Proud Vehicle OWNERS!!!

I am ecstatic to report that I just mailed the payoff check for our van!!!  YAY!  Yes, we had a little help from our income tax, but mostly pinching pennies lately and Josh has been working some overtime   I am so thankful for a hard-working husband and that we are able to live happily while sacrificing some typical American luxuries.

A little slower than anticipated…

Well, our ending van debt for January is 1,580.00  It’s a bit more than it should be, but we had to lower our debt payment due to well…CARTER!  That sweet child and his baby teeth cost us a small fortune.  We were planning to take a small break after paying off the van to build our emergency fund (yes, I know we are supposed to do that first).  The problem is, every time is would get anything in it, we had to use it because we were drowning in bills.  So, we had to pay off some debt to free up some funds before we could build it up.   On a positive note, we had to get 2 more tires for the van, and we paid cash for them!  The van tires should be good for a while!

Anyway, I believe we are going to have enough income tax money to fund our emergency fund!  Yay!  So, that should mean no delays in our get out of debt plan.  Although, we really haven’t had any “delays” we are right on/slightly ahead of schedule still!  We will have the van paid off by April, I am soooo excited to be vehicle debt free!!

November, and a debt snowball ending for 2011.

Every year Christmas rolls around and although we try to make it the best we can for our family and friends, Josh and I always feel we fall short.  We never buy presents for each other, we spend very little on our children, and we feel like we leave so many others out.  Additionally, we always feel so blessed by those around us.  Therefore, this year, we have decided to take off the month of December (as in not pay on our van) and focus on the joy of giving. 

So, we will be back and ready to sacrifice and get our van paid off beginning in January.  Our balance is a little under $2,000.00.  Our debt payment is still $590.00 a month, and God willing, we will still have it paid off by our original goal of April 2012! 

So, from our family to yours, have a Merry Christmas, and remember to celebrate the birth our Lord Jesus Christ.

October, October…

So, this month is always crazy in our family.  We have my birthday, Josh’s, Candace’s (my sister-in-law) and my mom’s, all within 2 1/2 weeks.  However, we have goals to accomplish!  Therefore, Josh and I forewent presents for each other, settled for a card for other birthdays and we paid everything extra on our debt!  Yay!  Our van debt at the beginning of the month was $3,815.00…our new total van debt is $2,635.00.  Our debt payment is $590.00, that is an additional  $590.00!!!!!!  I am amazed the God allowed us to pay almost $1,200.00 on our van this month, seriously!  It’s hard turning down dinners with friends, and we sacrifice other things as a family and stay home to not spend extra gas money.  However, when you are able to reap the harvest of your sacrifice…WOW.  It blows me away every month what God allows us to accomplish.  This month has been really tight and our accounts have been lower than ever and spending money has been non-existent and we have went over our gas budget and had to scrape from other areas and sacrifice more, but God provides for us. I am going to bed with a thankful spirit.

WAAAHOOO!

OK, are you ready for this?  We now have our credit card PAID OFF!!!!!  Yay!  We began the month with a balance of $760.00, and as of Thursday (only 22 days later) it is paid in FULL!  I am so excited about this!!!  Josh and I decided when we started this journey that after we paid something off, we would take a month off and do something for us with the debt payment.  However, we are both so excited to begin phase 5 of our 10 phase get out of debt plan, we aren’t going to do that!  We are going to go to Kabutos and celebrate one night, if Josh ever gets some time off work! 

So, on to phase 5….the van.  Our current balance is $3,815.00.  Our expected payoff date is April 2012.  If God keeps working these miracles, it will be before that, but we are still shooting for that date as of now.  Those of you who have been following us may remember our expected payoff date for the credit card WAS December!  3 months ahead of schedule!!!  Not to mention, we are going to start on the van debt with a little of next week’s paycheck (still Sept.!).  Our current debt payment is $590.00 a month ($260 carry over and $330 van payment).

In addition to our awesome news, we had many more blessings these past few weeks.  My tire went out, we were able to pay cash for a new tire and not even stress over it!  We had an opportunity to buy a family membership to the Adventure Science Center at half price, and did! Also, our toilet seat broke and the pump thing went bad (seriously), we paid cash for everything!  We have never experienced this financial freedom God has allowed us to achieve through hard work, sacrifice, prayer and faith!