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Such an awesome feeling! In our life, we decided to try really hard to pay off our mortgage within the next 2 years. We bought the house in 1999, and hope to have it paid off by early 2010. We live in an affordable area, and we've also been a 1 income family. As my husband's pay increased over the years, we'd splurge more, take better vacations, did some really expensive things. Then, last August, I had an epiphany, and I told my husband that it would really feel secure to have a house that was ours, free and clear, and that it would be great if we could just start throwing any extra money at it (the mortgage) and fortunately, we have an emergency fund, retirement, and college savings started. So, he agreed, and we've put nearly $35,000 toward it in 8 months. We still have $52,000 to go. And belt tightening hasn't been all that hard...just applied a little more effort into things like not eating out like we were (saving around $200 per month) my husband started packing his lunch and bringing coffee from home (saving about $200 per month) and I stay away from Target like the plague! (saving several hundred per month!) We have said "no" to things that would have been fun, like some shows or concerts or getaways, that before, we would have said yes to without a thought. Also, I've said "no" to our children more often, but with the explaination that we are all working together to pay our mortgage down, and that if we do this as a team, we'll have more money to help them when they go to college. Which will start in 4 1/2 years. It feels really good to be working toward something constructive like this, and being more frugal is a great way to come up with the extra cash to put toward something concrete.
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