This past month, Laura and I came one step closer to our goal of being completely debt free. So far, we’ve followed the financial roadmap that we talked about a few days ago, and are debt free except for the house. If or when it comes time to buy another house, we plan on either paying cash for it, or at the most, getting a 15 year fixed rate mortgage. As for now, we are still paying off the mortgage we do have.

When I bought our house six years ago, I signed up for an 80-20 loan, that splits the home loan into two separate loans. One loan is for 80% of the value and the other is for 20% of the value of the house. That way, I still pay for the full loan, but don’t have to pay PMI which is just a waste of money if you are a buyer. At the time of my purchase, I hadn’t learned the lessons of debt and putting money down, thus I  financed 100% of the loan. Today, I doubt my type of loan is even possible and I certainly don’t recommend buying a house with nothing to put down.

Just the other day, we received in the mail from our bank our loan payoff papers for our 20% loan because we paid it off early! We are pretty excited to have that part of the loan behind us, nine years earlier than scheduled. Now, we can roll that payment into our 80% loan to pay it off sooner too. All in all, we plan to have the 30 year loan paid off in 10 years — barring any major issues! (Our 20% loan was for a lower interest rate and for 15 years, whereas the 80% loan is a higher rate and a 30 year term.)

We are excited! More importantly, we want to be excited for YOU when your letters come from the bank showing payoff too. Being completely debt free is possible, and financial freedom can be a reality, you just have to put your mind to it, and show your budget and wallet who’s boss. If you aren’t there yet, like us, get mad about it. Get upset about it. Let it rile you up and get under your skin. When you get upset, you get serious. When you get mad, you get real about your issues. Let that anger and paying on debt after debt get you motivated to get out from under your debt. We pay almost $500 each month on the interest on our remaining mortgage. That’s $500 we throw away each month that we could be spending, saving, or giving away.

We hope to be letting you know when our last mortgage is paid off completely. That day will be a sweet day, but for now, we keep on keepin’ on and being as responsible as possible to make that dream a reality, sooner rather than later.

TobyLaura.com