I’ve got my mind on my mortgage and my mortgage on my mind. This month we’ve made strides toward our next goal of getting the principal balance on our mortgage to $150,000.00. I downloaded a free debt tracker called “Debtris” from debtfreecharts.com so we can visualize paying off the mortgage in more manageable chunks once we get to that mark. Each little block will be $750.00 and there are only 200 blocks. Easy, right? I promise you, when we get this honker paid off, we’re having a big honking party and everyone is invited. We will make some noise! HONK! HONK!
So, anyway, this month, I got really crazy and hunted around the house for things to sell on Facebook marketplace. Here’s what I sold in June:
- Dog Crate $34
- Baker’s Rack $25
- Chandelier $25
- 2 Tonka Steel Dump Trucks (Brand new!) $50
- Crib $50
- Basketball Goal $25
That’s $209 we sent to the mortgage company from crap we had laying around the house, and we get the bonus of more free space too!
De-crappify and make some money! I also sold a book on eBay, but after fees and shipping, I netted $2.73 for the mortgage. Fine. I’ll send it. Every dollar is going to work. Additionally, due to the way my Dependent Care Flexible Spending account works, after my paycheck, I received a reimbursement check for $172.47 for childcare expenses this month.
We added those to the mortgage to the additional $150 I squeezed out of my paycheck biweekly for a grand total of $684.20 extra to the mortage this month. The regular mortgage payment posted $334 to the principal, so that’s over $1,000 down on the principal this month. PUMPED. The extra $300 per month will pay the mortgage off in 15 years, which is my drop dead year for retirement, but all this extra money to pay it down sooner makes me extra-happy.
Even better than sending in all that extra money, we totally cash-flowed a kitchen renovation!
It’s still not 100% complete, but here’s the breakdown so far:
Incoming Money:
- $1,100.00 Savings for Renovations
- $440.00 Cash from Notary Work
- $281.75 Leftover from 3rd Paycheck in May
- $259.09 Paint refund
- $400.00 Tuition Refund (from school being out April and May)
- $105.00 Pool Pass Refund (they closed the aquatics center this summer)
- $50.00 Sale of Mattress on FB Marketplace
$2,635.84 Total Renovation Budget
Outgoing Money:
- $1914.28 Cabinet Doors, Drawer Facings, Hinges, Handles & Countertops
- $259.09 Overpriced Paint
- $87.79 Cabinet Paint
- $14.36 Tile Samples
- $7.50 Paint Samples
- $4.99 More Tile Samples
- $65.36 Wall Paint
$ 2,353.37 Total Spent So Far
We painted the kitchen & cabinets, picked up new cabinet doors, invisible hinges & updated handles, and installed new countertops. What’s left? The backsplash–the jewelry! I’m still waffling on the tiles for the backsplash, weighing the costs and complexity of each kind for installation. I’m really digging some hexagon tiles, but the glittery ones are really tugging on me. Sensible me is trying to talk me into some simple (and much cheaper) stainless steel square tiles to save money, but I really think this will be a fabulous touch that will make me smile every time I look at it.
We saved a lot of money by doing some of the work ourselves.
Mom and I spent a lot of hours prepping & painting the kitchen, and in the garage painting what felt like hundreds of doors. Clint installed the cabinet doors & drawers for me, and will be drilling the handles this month. We are also planning to DIY the backsplash under the tutelage of some really helpful YouTube videos or maybe my uncle, who is a master installer of flooring and tile.
But what a difference these changes have made so far! I don’t hate walking into my kitchen anymore, seeing those orange-stained nasty cabinets against that flat morgue-skin-colored wall. The light reflects off the light gray cabinets and it’s no longer a dungeon in there! I feel encouraged to go in and cut up some watermelon or wash my dish. I feel encouraged to maybe wipe some dust off the ceiling fan and maybe clean the light fixtures caked with 20 years of dust and kitchen grime.
Y’all, just sitting here writing about it, the amount of money that runs through our hands every month just stuns me and I am reminded that if we don’t put a job on it, how quickly and easily that money just slips away into the cracks and crevices of the nether. Have you ever just sat and jotted down the money that flows through your hands every month? What do you do with it? Does it have a job? Or does it just get absorbed?
I can’t wait to use this new debt tracker when we finally cross the $150,000 mark.
The daily visual reminder is a supremely satisfying motivator for me to get us entirely debt-free ASAP. Sure, a 15 year payoff will be great, but how much greater would it be to have zero payments several years SOONER? How much farther ahead financially could we be if we had no mortgage? (Or how much sooner could I renovate that bathroom?)
Hope you have a happy Fourth of July!
Erica
| Assets | Value | Owed | Totals |
| Farmhouse | $238,239.00 | $151,349.45 | $86,889.55 |
| Credit Cards | $0.00 | $217.06 | -$217.06 |
| Family Car | $2,000.00 | $0.00 | $2,000.00 |
| Truck | $1,500.00 | $0.00 | $1,500.00 |
| Savings & Investments | $66,971.72 | $0.00 | $66,971.72 |
| $308,710.72 | $151,566.51 | $157,144.21 | |
| Assets | Liabilities | Net Worth | |
| Total Debt Payoff Percentage: | 45.13% | ||
| 06/30/20 |
