Saturday, February 11, 2012

This is going to hurt

I crunched numbers last week - a lot of numbers.  I realized that I haven't been making any progress on getting rid of my debt because I keep borrowing money for repairs to this poorly built house.    So, I decided that, short of structural or safety-related issues, I'm not going to do anything to the house until the debt is gone.  Furthermore, I want the debt gone sooner rather than later.

After putting together a very strict budget, I went to the bank to arrange to have weekly payments applied to the line of credit.  If I can stick with this, I'll have the debt paid off in just over two years.    As wonderful as that will be, I'ma gonna be broker than broke for the next couple of years.

The bank tried to have me roll the debt into my mortgage and spread the payments out, but I didn't want to do that.  Although the payments would be lower, taking longer to pay things off would almost double the interest I'd have to pay in the long run.

So, I made a counter offer.  We kept the debt separate from the mortgage for now.  Every week, two mortgage-payment sized payments will come out of my bank - one will go to the house, and the other will go to the line of credit.  I'll be left with a bare minimum to pay for everything else.  But, if I can make it work for two years, I'll be consumer debt free.   If I can keep the same payments up for another 5 years after that, I'll have the house paid off too.

It's a scary thought, but at the same time, it's pretty great to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

7 comments:

  1. The light at the end of the tunnel is an amazing thing, keep positive and pay it off.

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  2. Been there. The stress is awful. But you'll come out of it and feel so much better!

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  3. Good for you! It may be helpful to periodically give yourself some kind of reward for your effort so that you don't end up feeling deprived and discouraged. It doesn't have to be anything that will break your new budget, but a formal recognition of your progress may help to keep you on the road to a debt free life. Again, good for you!

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  4. Good for you Janice! Shoot for the goal to pay that house of yours off, you can do it and you will be smiling and doing the mortgage free happy dance :) The quality of your life without that mortgage hanging over you will be a most wonderful thing.

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  5. Honestly, two years is nothing.
    You can do it.

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  6. Ooooh, a light at the end of the tunnel. I thought that was just a fairy tale. I feel I will never see that light. Good for you! You can do it!

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  7. you can do it!! Debt free eliminates sooooo much stress.

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