Yay, right!? Okay, so I know we shouldn’t have charged our vacation, but I know that my husband is getting a bonus this month and another in three months, so we’ll be able to pay it off by summer. I know we would be further ahead if we had just not taken a vacation, but we enjoyed ourselves and it was really good for us to get away as a family.
But we have gotten some good news and some “good” news in the past couple of days that may bode well for our financial future as it relates to our house. I called my current mortgage lender about refinancing and found out that I can refinance to 4.5%, as opposed to the current 6.0%. There are about $2400 in fees, including appraisal, credit report, closing costs, etc. This will lower our monthly mortgage payment about $140 a month. Because I currently have PMI on my home, they will not let me reduce my mortgage term from 30 years to 15 or 20 years. I’m not sure of the logic of this, aside from the fact that it keeps me paying PMI longer. It doesn’t matter though, because I’m going to continue paying the same amount towards my mortgage to pay my principle off quicker and ultimately get out of PMI quicker.
The other “good” news, that I put in parenthesis because it’s not really good news, but it’s better than the alternative, is that we received word on our appeal of our property value. They decreased our property value 25% for 2010, and 5% for 2011, so we should be receiving a refund of overpaid property taxes and will be paying less going forward.
The combination of these two items means we will likely see a nearly $200 decrease in our monthly mortgage payment. While we’re still stuck in a home that we hate, the extra money means that we can pay off our debt faster.
And finally, here is our current debt picture.
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