Evaluating the Finances with a Mortgage Payment
Today was my first mortgage payment to myself. I won’t actually have to start paying my mortgage till November, but I wanted to use September and October to get used to paying the massive payment. So I’ve set up a “mortgage savings account” with ING that I stick this money into, half at the first of the month, half on the 15th. The added benefit of this, is I’ll be at least a month ahead on mortgage payments if I run into a tight month.
Money is definitely going to be tight. It won’t be so bad I think when I’m not paying for the storage trailer each month, which will go away in October once we’ve unloaded all of our things. I think the hardest months are going to be December and January, simply because I’ll be starting to pay folks back that donated money for the down payment, dad won’t have extra money from mowing lawns, we’ll be adjusting to the new house and all its needs, and then we have to fit the holidays in there somewhere.
However, I’ve started planning (again).
Taxes + $7500 first time home buyer bonus is going to probably go towards paying off the rest of the people that donated money, as well as paying off my car. But a lot of this won’t happen until February.
Dad’s loan with the ridiculous interest rate will then be transfered to a 0% interest rate card that I will open up that’s good for balance transfers, and we can start paying that off in 2009. This I will do once #1 above is done.
His medical bills I don’t believe collect interest, so those will just have to be paid slowly as we have the money.
I got to thinking about how I put money away for the holidays every year. It used to be I would put enough money away throughout the year to have over $600 towards Christmas/Yule, with no real set amount or purpose for it. I decided this year that I will probably start designating $100 to each person, plus a little extra for a tree. $100 for my father, $100 for me, $100 towards my sister (maybe less, she has plenty of people to spoil her), and then $60 extra for a tree and cards for my dad). So I’m looking at about $360-$400 total to save up instead of the $600.
That’s $33/month I’ll need to put away, or $17 a paycheck. Not a bad deal, and will be much easier on my finances. I’ll start putting this away this December for next year. We’ll already have $360 or so put away for this upcoming December.
Otherwise this past year I think I’ve done really well reducing my finances to their absolute minimum. I really don’t have any excess bills at all, I have no debt besides my car and mortgage. I just have the minimum average bills. I could certainly cut them down more if things get really crazy. Like removing comcast completely, giving the MUD server costs to someone else for a while, get rid of my cellphone, etc. But there’s no need to do any of that.
I still donate $100 a month to my Roth IRA, I still donate $140 a month into my 401k, I still put money away each month for my car insurance premium so I’m paying less by paying the whole thing at once instead of monthly, I still put money away for the holidays so I’m not hit with the holiday stress of last minute money woes, and I’m still putting away $100 a month into my emergency savings account.
And despite taking several months of tweaking and adjusting to get my monthly bills where I’m satisfied, I think I’ve done a pretty good job.
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