Hoowee, boy! Where have we been? I’ve had a lot of guilt over not writing for nearly four months, so here are my excuses:

• Our oldest started Pre-K, so now the boys go to two different schools, which has required a little extra coordination. Also, it costs just as much with tuition, after school care, and all that fundraising to have him in pre-K as it did in daycare–no cost savings this year.
• Then I had emergency surgery in September to yank out my gall bladder, appendix, and an ovary with a cyst (ouch). Talk about a total blowout of the budget. Yes, hello, Crestwood? Could we talk about a multiple-organ discount?
• In October, my office had a staffing situation that required me to work more until I finally got my replacement in March.
• Also, Clint quit his job to re-launch his business, so we lost that regular income, and re-joined the irregular income community.
• In November, the truck crapped out on us and we had to replace it. We don’t live where a single-family-car situation would work, plus my car can’t pull his trailer for his work, plus it was peak season at work for me which meant longer hours, so I don’t want to hear about sucking it up.
• Then Clint had a sinus surgery right before Christmas, and all the medical bills that come with it. Seriously, we got another bill in March for a totally new medical debt. I thought we’d already paid the anesthesiologists!
• Did I mention that it has rained in Alabama so much that some of us have started speaking with British accents? Just kidding. Sort of.
• In February, we signed both the boys up for baseball and I was accidentally chosen to be head coach. (Thankfully, now I’m just helping!) With two boys in different age groups, we practice a lot! How do you parents of multiple kids do it?!?!

Okay, Okay, you’re right.

Those are just excuses.

You’re busy, too, and you’ve been handling business, so I need to get with the program. It comes down to what we prioritize, and I admit I have been a little grumpy and selfish. But I also feel like I’m getting my life back together. I keep saying that.

Let’s go ahead give you the debt and net worth numbers for March 31, 2018:

Yes, you’re reading that right. Our total debt load increased (GRR!). Honestly, we could have paid cash for the truck we replaced, but fear and the spirit of self-preservation drove us to take out a loan.

It was the beginning of the holiday season, which meant Clint wasn’t working much, and we didn’t know how long he’d be unable to work. We shopped some auto loans, but good old American Express offered a loan at a better rate than even our local credit union, so we took it…along with an extra $1500 for December bills.

No, it’s not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but if we’d paid cash for the truck, the December bills would have wiped out our savings entirely (nevermind all these shiny new medical bills rolling in) and that’s not how we wanted to start 2018. If we’d known in November that by now we’d be okay, I still don’t think we’d have chanced having zero savings. Sorry, Dave. 

The $26 a month in interest it cost us to have that loan with a $200 payment for four months was well worth the security of keeping our savings intact while we settled into 2018. But this month, we went ahead and paid off the final half of the balance, so we are back to debt-free except the mortgage. Wahoo!

And we’re way ahead of where we started.

Oh wait, speaking of the mortgage….

Also, have I told you how much I loathe private mortgage insurance?

It was making me ill sending in $116.31 per month to insure my mortgage company against _US_ skipping out on paying for the house. And due to the way FHA loans are structured now, we were going to have to pay that for the life of the loan (not just until we hit the 20% equity mark). A little calculating (28 years x $116.31) showed me that totaled a staggering thirty-nine THOUSAND dollar DONATION we’d be making and I lost my mind. I must have glossed over that little pearl in the original loan origination.

Anyway, I called my mortgage company and told them I wanted to get out from under the private mortgage insurance. I informed them I was sure my home was undervalued and we had enough equity to qualify for a loan without PMI. In three days, without even another appraisal, Quicken Loans’ Rocket Mortgage had me ready for closing on my 27 year mortgage. At my house. On a Saturday. Seriously, I called them on a Monday and Thursday, they called to schedule the closing for the weekend. Do you know of anyone who’s ever had a three-day closing WITH a new mortgage?

Yes, the interest rate went up a fraction of a percentage to 4.125%. If we pay on the house a whole 27 more years, we’ll pay more interest than the original loan planned. But hey, no PMI.

Yes, we just added $7,000 to our total debt load in closing costs and prepaids, but we got back a few thousand in escrow refunds closing the old mortgage, which we dumped directly on our debt, so it worked out to about average on closing costs. (Also $7,000/$116.31 = 60 months to recoup the cost of the re-fi.) But hey, no PMI.

But we don’t plan on having a mortgage until we’re 68 years old.

Refinancing from 27.5 years to 27 years shaved off 6 months’ repayment time effortlessly. We’ll be 67.5 years old.

I immediately signed us up for bimonthly payments, which will lop off another 3.5 years of repayment. That puts us at 64 years old.

The payment went down $50 a month, but we’re just going to keep allocating that $50 to the mortgage to speed up repayment by another 2 years. Payoff estimated at about 62 years old. That may be all right for social security, but it’s still not soon enough for us!

When our first child begins school in August, the money we were spending on tuition (that doesn’t end up going toward out-of-district fees) will start going toward the mortgage principal, which should get us to a payoff at around 59 years old (based on my estimates, assuming fees don’t increase).

Additionally, when Clint’s business starts making more money, that can also go toward the mortgage. $500.00 additional a month (I’m estimating conservatively) would save nearly seven years repayment time, putting us at about 53 years old.

Side note: I’d have 30 years at the old grind and be eligible to retire at 53. Ooh. Tingles.

So, conservatively, I’m estimating a twelve-or-thirteen year repayment on the mortgage. Of course, we’re always tweaking the budget, and every chance we get, we’ll be grinding down on the principal. And we’re not paying $39,000 in PMI.

Side note: if you’re considering a purchase or refinance,

we recommend Quicken Loans’ Rocket Mortgage.

Use any of these codes for $750 off: RAURNZ37, R7MH7UMH, RIHIVW8D, RWZ9OWBS.

So, aside from the mortgage refinance and all the medical bills, WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

We’ve been budgeting $400 a month for grocery expenses (aside from our pasture-raised pork & cow processing, which we have as a separate line item). So far, for January through March, we’ve made it just under budget, and I estimate that this is saving us $100.00 a month over what we were spending last year, but we haven’t tracked it as closely as I’d have liked, and we haven’t earmarked the savings for anything, so unfortunately, it seems to have just been absorbed into the budget somewhere.  Does that happen to you?

I’ve also worked really hard on meal-planning (and planned leftovers) to cut down on random extra trips to the store, which inevitably always find us picking up other unnecessary things. Does that happen to you, too?

For April, we’re trying something different: a pantry/freezer challenge.

We have three deep freezes, all nearly full of food, and we’re anticipating picking up our quarter of a cow sometime around mid-April. This month, we’re going to try to spend less than $100.00 on groceries while we eat up the food in our pantry and freezers to make room. 

Side note: we have pasture-raised, hormone-free USDA-regulation-processed pork sausage available for $6.99 a pound if you’re interested–it’s delicious!

Also on the chopping block: Our lousy satellite internet.

Our internet costs $85 for 10 gigs of data each month, so I called Hughes Net and asked for a better rate. They obviously are not afraid of losing me as a customer, because they only offered us $20 off for three months because I wouldn’t switch to their newer-faster-more-expensive 5G service with a one year commitment. Clint and I are using this 90 days to research other options, such as buying a simple phone to operate as a hot-spot in our home. We’re certain this will be less expensive than our current costs.

(Any suggestions?)

Maybe I’ll make the rounds again with phone calls to the big internet-dawgs and see what their new excuses are for not laying fiber optic cable up here on the mountain. I say that tongue-in-cheek, y’all. I know we’re way out.

One word: Diapers

Sure, it’s just twenty or thirty bucks a month at this point, but if we don’t have to spend it, we could be putting it on the mortgage (theoretically). Aww. My baby boy is growing up! Unless he decides tomorrow that he wants to be the baby again. Then this section will self-destruct.

Garden Outlook

Talk about rolling out a welcome mat, baking chocolate chip cookies, and fluffing pillows in the guest room! Somebody please help me welcome spring up in here–it’s been such a gloomy, wet winter!

The boys’ teepee has received an upgrade with some trash-picked old supports from a pop up tent.

Of course, last week’s tornado knocked it down and I’m going to have to get back out there and re-zip-tie it back together.

But it’s going to be great! The boys will be helping me plant pole beans and sunflowers to give them some shade this summer.

Maybe I should throw some little grass seeds down. I don’t know. Would you leave the “floor” just wood chip mulch or plant a “carpet”?

In the garage, seed trays and seed-starting soil are ready for the big operation. I keep putting it on my calendar and then things pop up, like, family nap-time. 

Upstairs, mom gifted me an indoor grow station that’s been sitting on the shelf for a couple of months. We’re going to bust that thing out in April and start making things happen. Green things. 

In the kitchen, I have a few avocado seeds sprouting roots in the windowsill. Look, if any of you have successfully taken an avocado pit from root to fruit-tree, I need you to jump in here and tell me what’s what.

That’s about it with us this month.

What’s new in your world?

See you soon.

Erica