Time for the second monthly update! The second prepayment of the month went through yesterday to push the balance down to $56,835. So long, fifty-seven thousandses, it's been good to know ya... Meanwhile, the bank continues to be blissfully unaware of my true target payoff date (2018). They now think I'll be done in August of 2027. They're only nine years off, so their aim is getting a bit better.

In other news, my final hobby purchase is drawing near, hooray! I'm putting down another big payment later this month, a combination of savings and investments that, with the initial deposit, totals three-quarters of the final price. This was quite a bit sooner than I expected, so I had to scramble to figure out how to raise the last 25% in the next few months without cutting into the efund or other savings accounts. But I think I've worked it out: if I funnel everything except xmas and pre-payment money towards this purchase in November and December and early January, I'll have it covered. And then I'll have nothing in the world left to wish for except turtleneck sweaters!

And it's getting cool again. Time to continue dreaming about those turtlenecks!! You get me every time. Nice job on the paydown...I'm still trying to stay ahead of you, sans extra payments. ha ha. I will definitely post if you get close. You're definitely gaining though.

As November opens in the aftermath of Sandy, I'm sure many of you, like me, are thinking about bulking up their disaster preparedness...and wishing the best to the folks in badly damaged areas in NYC and NJ. Next year's main goal will be to replenish the efund, but I'm now thinking that a larger stock of canned goods, water, batteries, and some sort of charging device are going to be part of those efund plans. Also thinking about putting a woodstove in the living room fireplace, in case natural gas gets cut off (plus it would lower my natural gas consumption).

Meanwhile, the march towards a mortgage balance of zero continues. Made the first prepayment today to lower the balance to 56,378.00. I will not quite kiss the fifty-six-thouandses good-bye this month, but it'll be very, very close.

As a Floridian, I would say that the most important part of our disaster plan is to:

(1) keep cash on hand, I keep $200 in small bills on hand at all times. If it appears a storm is coming our way, I get more but then we spend it down.
(2) gas is one of the most important tools. runs the cars so you can get somewhere else and runs the generator. But since gas goes bad we don't leave it sitting around. rather we fill up our cars if a storm approaches and we fill up our gas tanks for the generator and then we use the gas for power washing, mowing the lawn etc., Mr. Sam uses it in the antique car.
(3) phone land line. we have because of storms. even if you can charge your cell phone often times you can't use it because the cell towers are down or the cell system is damaged. the phone land lines can also have issues but seem to be much more sturdy and we never lost our land line in any of the various storms.

Early Happy Turkey Day to all! Except, obviously, to the turkey...

Made the second prepayment of the month to bring the total balance down to $56,038. The bank now thinks I will be done in May 2027.

Although this has been a bizarre year financially and otherwise, at least this one goal will have been accomplished! Even if the Mayan calendar turns out to be right and the world is ending on Dec 20, 2012, I will go up in a puff of smoke having met my target of getting the mortgage down to $55K.

CecilyC

Great job, Cecily!! Keep on chugging along, and soon you'll be done!

I'm getting in the holiday spirit a little early this year -- bought and decorated a tree for the first time in years, because I will actually be around enough this season to enjoy it! Christmas came very early this year in another sense, since over Thanksgiving I got a bunch of free hand-me-down turtleneck sweaters from a relative. I was extra grateful for those the day I got the tree, thanks to a blast of Arctic air. Brrr!

The regular mortgage payment went through for a balance of $55,804.05, and I've just made the first prepayment to bring it down to $55,579.05. One payment left to make this year! In addition to calculating next year's mortgage target, I've also decided that I want to accelerate my car savings a bit (pun intended) so as to replace my current car (with a hybrid) sooner rather than later, and that next year will primarily be my "year of increasing the emergency fund."

I've been thinking about our earlier discussion about the psychology of saving vs. the psychology of debt reduction. I don't know whether this will work, but I think I am going to try treating these savings targets as debts: numbers to be reduced rather than numbers to be augmented. Stay tuned...

Looks like you have made the target you set yourself at the start of this year.

Well done.

I struggle with this. I'm much more excited about chipping away at our mortgage than I am about saving. Even though we just refinanced our mortgage down to 2.75% and cut 6 years from the term (saving $180,000) I'm back to running the numbers to see how soon we could kill our mortgage. But then I look at how much we are saving by paying extra towards the mortgage and with the super low interest rate its just not a whole lot. Math wise it makes more sense to invest that money in the market but heart sense I'd rather kill the mortgage.

Made the second prepayment to bring the balance down to $55,240! The bank now thinks I will pay it off by March of 2027. So this year I took $9400 and two and a half years off the mortgage. In 2013, I hope to take a full 10K off the mortgage, and maybe get close to taking three years off.

I'll be posting my goals at the new year. Meanwhile, hope you all have a good holiday season, whatever you celebrate. Parents, hug your kids extra hard this week...

Cheers,
Cecily

Impressive achievement this year. I have no doubt that you'll make your goals for next year as well.

All right. Time to post the 2013 plans! As someone else was pointing out on another thread, the tax adjustments that will happen thanks to the fiscal cliff (don't you wish we could just stop their paychecks in Washington??) have made it more difficult to plan ahead, but I've tried to estimate what the additional tax bite will be. Hope it's at least close to accurate....my plans may have to be adjusted if the bite is bigger.

OK, so the one goal that's immovable is the mortgage prepay. My goal is to knock 10K off in 2013, get it down to $45,220.

The next priority is to build the efund back up after an expensive year. I have two accounts for this, the "quick draw" fund linked to my checking account, which I want to put $1500 in, and the "big backup" fund at Vanguard, which I want to increase by $3700. Added to the money already there, this would get me back up to just about 6 months' expenses.

Other savings goals include car savings (also depleted by various repairs) and travel to visit family (I'd like to make three visits to my nephews on the other side of the country in 2012).

In order to make all this happen I am targeting savings to different accounts. I'm also going on a clothing fast. No clothing purchases in 2013! I certainly have enough to make do, I'd say.

It's harder for me to keep motivated to save than to pay down debt, so I am going to try treating these savings goals as numbers to be reduced, or debts owed to myself, rather than numbers to be augmented. More fun to watch numbers go down, for some reason! We'll see whether it works.

quick draw "debt": 1500
big backup "debt": 3700
car savings "debt": 3600
travel/xmas "debt": 3000

Oh, I like how you inverted this! Good idea! We're cheering you on with your 2013 goals!

With everything you have accomplished in 2012, there is no doubt in my mind that you'll accomplish your mortgage goals. You are determined to destroy that debt.



I have the same problem. After I started posting again I realized that was one of the problems that kept me from ataining my goals. With that in mind I added a new section to my "debt reduction plan" spreadsheet.

2500 150 2350
2350 150 (=)

The first number is my target goal to add to my retirement funds. The second number is what I know I can add per month. The third number is a formula that subtracts the second number from the first. I have first number on the second row set up to grab the amount from the third number above it. This way I can run the numbers all the way down the page for 12 months. What this shows me is that by the end of the year in order to achieve my goal of $2500 added to my retirement funds I need to find an additional 700 over the course of the year.

This allows me to treat my savings goal like a debt. If in Jan I am able to put 225 towards my retirement then I'll just change the 150 to 225 for that month and the formulas will change everything else on down the line. I'll instantly be able to see my progress for the end of the year.

Maybe this will help you also achieve your goals.

Congratulations on all your progress in 2012 and good luck with your new plans for 2013