dreamin_disney
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2008
Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know I would feel like a huge burden would be lifted. I would love the extra money to enjoy life.Yesterday, we paid our mortgage off. Today, we woke up for the first time in a house that we paid off.
We had bagels for breakfast and it was pretty uneventful. We haven’t told anyone, and don’t plan to, but all day if I caught my DH’s eye, we just had a little smile. We were with lots of relatives today.
I know from a previous post that tons of you have paid off your mortgages already. I don’t know how I thought I’d feel..... I guess excited. Happy. Relieved.
Did you feel any different?
I was playing with a mortgage calculator the other day and $100 does make a difference. I'm paying DDs college housing and meal plan, once she's done with college 1/2 will go to house payment and other 1/2 to retirementCONGRATULATIONS!!!!
for us it felt very freeing to know that our home is truly OUR home. the following month seeing the difference between what we had been paying for our 'house payment' vs. the much smaller amount we now set aside each month to self pay our property taxes, homeowners and umbrella policy insurance was/continues to be amazing (don't forget to let your insurance company know you've paid it off-and consider speaking to them about your existing coverage, owning a home outright can put a target on your backs in the event of lawsuits b/c you've got a nice big unencumbered asset).
we initially thought it would take us much longer than it did b/c we couldn't afford to put much more towards the principle but then I started playing around with online mortgage calculators and saw the number of months just a hundred or so a month reduced the life of the loan so we started with whatever extra money we could afford (maybe $100 or so), then it became like a game-seeing where we could find money to throw at the principle. if we underspent what we had budgeted for a vacation or Christmas it got thrown at principle, if there was money left over at the end of the month after everything was paid for (including what we continued to put into savings)-it got thrown at it, if we got even a $25 a month raise in income it got thrown at it. it helped that our mortgage was set up at the same credit union as our bank accounts so we could go online at any time and make a payment transfer from any of our accounts.
every little bit helps so don't feel like you have to wait until you can double your payments.
I would probably want to have a big party or bbq with family to celebrate. I would keep the house payoff a secret and just say we want to have a big party to hangout with family. My reason for keeping it a secret would be so that people don't start wanting to borrow money, ask up to pay for certain celebrations like wedding dj or baptism etc. I know MIL and hubbys side might be the ones to ask especially for big party events helping out pay for something. No thanks! We have parties and we pay for it ourselves but some people have no shame. We have 16 years left and DD have 3 years left of college so in 3 years I'll start the extra payments