It's been a bittersweet week for me - given all of the things that are going on in the country and the world right now I am really profoundly sad and also scared, but we also paid of the mortgage last Monday.
I haven't felt like writing about it, but this is a blog about money not current events or politics or anything like that, so I am determined to celebrate this huge milestone!
On Monday we went into the bank and paid off the remainder of our mortgage. This is the month that D has three paychecks (he is paid every other week rather than twice a month and we decided to live off two paychecks each month and use the two extra each year as a "bonus"). So we used that extra paycheck plus the amount the bank has in escrow (don't worry, we have saved our own "escrow" for taxes and insurance).
Our bank doesn't charge anything for a payoff statement, and they don't charge anything for payoff except the $30 to record the release of the lien at the County.
I checked into all of this ahead of time. All we owed was the remaining mortgage less the escrow plus $30.
It hasn't really sunk in yet... I guess it will when that mortgage payment DOESN'T come out of our account on the 2nd of next month.
I am now busy drawing up a new budget. According to the YNAB philosophy, "every dollar has a job" even if that job is savings. We have to fund a few categories before the budget is really set (I want to make sure we max our our IRAs before the year is over so that's an extra $600 per month... things like that).
Actually the first time it sort of hit me that this is real was in Trader Joe's today. I usually buy the $2.79 cage free/hormone free eggs, but then I saw the organic/free range eggs for $3.99, and I bought a dozen of those. It's $1.20 more, but I want to see if they are as good as the eggs we used to get in Ireland. And I could make a decision like that, whereas before I never would have.
On the other hand, I am going to get me hair cut next week at Great Clips with a coupon. I don't need to spend money for no reason!
PS - F rode her unicycle into the bank for a festive atmosphere when we went in to pay off our mortgage! It was funny! And we ran into our City Councilor from our district who told us congratulations.
PPS - The other things I did this week are called the insurance company to let them know that we'll now pay for the insurance ourselves. Also made sure that I turned off the mortgage auto-payment on the online banking site. And I still need to contact the County to make sure we get the bill for property taxes and not our bank.
Mortgage Paid Off! Weird! And Good! But Weird!
August 13th, 2017 at 09:46 pm
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August 14th, 2017 at 06:48 pm 1502736512
What do you mean, you're going to pay for the insurance yourself now? Are you talking about cancelling your homeowners insurance?
August 14th, 2017 at 08:36 pm 1502743016
@patientsaver, she means that she'll pay the insurance premium directly to the insurance carrier now that there's no escrow.
August 15th, 2017 at 03:50 pm 1502812205
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August 20th, 2017 at 07:26 pm 1503257160
Seems the eclipse has diverted [eclipsed] the country's attention while the endless 'pivots' moves the administration to whatever becomes their next faux pas.
I'm surprised that Jewish organizations have not taken a 'never again' position. Sorry to be so woefully ignorant but what do your religious and cultural leaders say? Are there 'compounds' in New Mexico? Is law enforcement vigilant? What do you suggest? Do you take care to boycott any business that supports neonazis, white supremacists and racial bigotry? Who profits? Who sells them all the guns, weaponry paraphernalia?
On the other hand, I wish there was credit given to Murdoch for a major donation to Jewish Defense League. Their President was interview to discuss his meetings with Trump over the years.
August 20th, 2017 at 11:50 pm 1503273010
- I am Jewish, but I Judaism is my culture rather than my religion; I was raised in a non-religious family, so this isn't a new development. For this reason, I don't attend a synagogue.
- I don't have religious or cultural leaders, but I do admire our mayor; he is Hispanic, openly gay and very inclusive; he's named Santa Fe a sanctuary city and I'm really proud of that!
- New Mexico is pretty diverse, but not how people may think. The state is mostly Hispanic; there are a few Mexican immigrants, but the families of most of the Hispanic people in New Mexico have been here for 400 years (and call themselves Spanish). We did not become a state until 1912. In Northern New Mexico and Santa Fe, the percentage of Spanish people is even higher than the rest of the state.
- This is my way of saying that taken together, minorities are the majority here (Hispanic, Jewish, black, whatever).
- Not sure what a compound is...?
- I've never met any neo-nazis or white supremacists, but Santa Fe is extremely liberal. Santa Fe County voted for Clinton 71% v. 20% for Trump. It was even higher for Obama... but that's the County. It's even higher in our city.
- A lot of the families I know are mixed in some way (like my family). F's soccer team is a good example: 4 girls are white, 2 girls are half white/half jewish, 3 girls are hispanic, 4 girls are half white/half hispanic, one girls is native american.
- We don't have ethnic neighborhoods here. My neighbors are from all different ethnic groups.
- It was Murdoch's son that made the donation to the JDL... and I am glad he did - it was a reaction to Trump's comments, and I applaud any Republican who made a statement like that.
August 20th, 2017 at 11:56 pm 1503273412
I am not scared for myself personally. I am scared for my country and for everyone in it. I don't understand how there can be people who think like this.
August 21st, 2017 at 02:53 am 1503284002
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I believe you pop up on an Organizing site.
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