Friday, April 23, 2010

Getting Ready

We are so close to hitting the 5 digit mark on our main house mortgage, I can taste it. It will officially happen next Friday when our mortgage payment is taken out.

This month has been a big month for mortgage pay down because it is a 3 payment month (biweekly schedule) as well as the annual top of extra prepayment. Remember we have maximum prepayment laws here in Canada...

May will mark the start of prepayments on the ski condo mortgage as well. It will be nice to see it clip along faster than the measly amount it has been moving.

In light of D's first pay cheque coming soon, we've spent a lot of time working on modifications to our spreadsheets to reflect the different days of the month he is getting paid and the effects on our cash flow.

What a nightmare it was as I already had mine jigged out "perfectly" and now, some of our savings goals and regular spending timing is changing.

It's hard to go with the flow when spreadsheets, by their nature are exact. D's severance ended up less than we thought due to differing tax withholding levels but at least it came earlier than they said so that was a nice bonus.

7 comments:

  1. What's the "maximum prepayment law"??

    Wow! 5 digit mark next Friday! I'm very happy for you. I love hearing good news. =)

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  2. That's a very big deal! I hope the numbers and changes all manage to fall into place, but what an exciting place to be! :) Congrats!

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  3. That does feel good, doesn't it? We hit the $100K mark on the mortgage last summer and I remember feeling like we were finally getting somewhere paying it off!

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  4. Hi Sandra!

    Thanks very much! There is a limit to how much we can prepay on our mortgages here. Ours is 15% yearly. That is a way for them to ensure they earn a certain amount from each mortgage. They don't like people like us who want to exit early.

    Should we want to pay it off, like you will, we'd have to be willing to pay a few month's worth of penalities on top of capital gains and dividend taxes from cashing in investments in order to do so.

    Hi Northern Living Allowance!

    Yes, it is for us mentally! Thank you!

    Hi S.B.!

    I remember seeing a chart somewhere listing the major stressors in our life and was surprised that amount of debt was on it.

    Over $200K was right up there in the top 15 along side the usual ones of divorce, death of spouse etc. whereas further down it ranked $150K, then under $100K in the 20 - 30 positions.

    I've never been able find that chart but amount of debt carried really does make a difference in the amount of "weight" one carries.

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  5. Congrat's on getting into the $90,000's!

    We don't have a pre-payment limit, as far as I understand it. We can raise our monthly payments once a year, and lower them back down once a year. We are currently paying $250/month extra, and once we've finished saving for our replacement vehicles (by 2012) we'll increase our mortgage payments again, probably by another $250/month.

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  6. That really sucks! I'm glad we don't have a limit/penalty on prepaying mortgage.

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  7. Thanks Makky's Mom!

    It would be nice to not have a pre-payment limit and the ability to lower payments. We can only increase, never come down unless we re-finance which means more money to the bank...

    Hi Sandra!

    Yup, it does...there are many rules here. I'm glad for you that your system is different and more flexible. Makes it easier to achieve your goals.

    I guess we could just swallow the penalities and pay things off faster but I just refuse to pay any more that I have to to the bank. Plus we aren't keen on decreasing our investments right now.

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