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Financial Literacy: Whose Responsibility Is It?

April 15, 2019 By Thinking of Someday

Here we are already in April. The month is known for its Spring (and sometimes Winter) weather along with the pollen. Do you know what else April is known for? April is Financial Literacy Month, which was designated in the US in 2003. Financial literacy refers to a person’s knowledge of personal finances, money, and investing. To be financially literate means that you have the knowledge and skills necessary to make the best possible decisions in regards to your personal finances.

Honestly, we didn’t even know until recently that there was a financial literacy month, but considering how important finances are, it makes sense. However, many Americans aren’t financially literate and it left us thinking about whose responsibility is it to teach financial literacy?

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Kim’s Financial Literacy Background

I remember when I was a little kid and I would get money from someone. The first thing I would do with it was put it in my piggy bank or purse to save it. I always saved my money. So much so that my older brother would sometimes ask to borrow money from me and I’d make him promise to pay it back. And yes, he did. I didn’t play about my money even at a young age. Lol. I’m not sure where the habit of saving my money came from.

When I started working, eventually my mom took me to open my own checking and savings account. Most of my checks were deposited and I would have some money to spend. The money I was saving would eventually be used for things like prom, a car after I graduated high school, etc.

In high school, the most I remember about learning about money and finances is when I took Economics. It was a mandatory class. I remember helping classmates fill out (fake) checks because several of them didn’t know how. And I was shocked that they didn’t know how. And I also recall doing a project where we had to research an apartment to live in as well as figure out the other expenses. I didn’t get the grade I thought I would because the teacher said the food budget wasn’t realistic since I said would go to my parent’s house to eat. Lol.

Fast forward to college, and I finally got my first credit card to help build credit. And when my first car died, I took out a loan to get my next car. It was only $5100. I wanted to pay it off early, but once I started nursing school, I couldn’t work as much. So I only ended up paying it off 6 months early (and then it died too). Speaking of nursing school, this is where I racked up the most debt. Student loans of course.

I wrote an entire series about this actually:

  • How I Chose My College Major
  • Why I Didn’t Mind Paying Back My Student Loans
  • How I Paid Off $36,500 Of Student Loan Debt
  • Why You Should Save For Your Child’s College Education

In college, I didn’t learn anything about personal finance, money, or debt. I do recall receiving the promissory note for my student loans and realizing that I had 6 months after graduation before I had to start repaying them.

Overall, I don’t recall having any sit-down conversations with my parents about money. It was always random like, “Let me show you how to fill out a check. If you get a credit card make sure you pay it off. We’re going to try to avoid student loans.” Or on the other hand, I learned what not to do. And this isn’t to place blame on parents. Besides, whose mistakes better to learn from than someone else’s? Looking back on it, eventually, I learned that I need to make sure that I pay off my debt, have some money in my savings account, save enough for retirement and something for my kids’ college, and I need to enjoy my money as well.

Omar’s Financial Literacy Background

I grew up in a middle-class home like most Americans. The general tone of money around our household was that money didn’t grow on trees. I remember my parents doing a lot of the work on our house – painting, carpentry, laying tile. They weren’t afraid to try to fix stuff on their own. I’m sure part of the reason they did this was to cut down on costs.

One thing I can say and am grateful for is that we never missed a meal. I have friends that are teachers and even they are blown away by the number of students that come to school hungry. Being the youngest I got all the hand-me-downs. And trust me, they looked like hand me downs. My school mates had no problem letting me know. It was painful at the time, but looking back I don’t think I would change it. To get over that I had to develop a tough skin and it taught me not to give a @4#% about what people think about my material possessions – a trait that has been extremely helpful in our wealth building process.

The other thing I remember was how much work we did around the house. During the summer we had to cut the grass like twice a week. In the fall we had to rake the leaves and keep the gutters clean. Saturday was clean the whole damn house day. Fold up your clothes, spread your bed, wipe down everything.

When I got a little older the church we went to sat on at least two acres of land that could be mowed. At age 15 or 16 I was cutting the whole church lawn using a commercial mower. The idea that money comes from work is missed by some folks. I’ve never been afraid to work and that has definitely helped in my financial journey.

Like Kim, my mom took me to the bank to open up a savings and checking account. I think I might have been in my mid-teens when she did this. Although it was Kim that showed me how to fill out a check. I don’t know where I got it from, but I’ve always been a natural saver. In college, while working at UPS, I consistently had between 1k and 2k in savings.

Again, like Kim, I don’t remember having any sit-down conversations with my parents either. The one thing I do vividly recall is when my dad introduced me to this country ass white guy on the radio named Dave Ramsey. That’s where my financial education started. I’m definitely grateful for that as well.

Whose Responsibility Is It?

While neither of us learned much about personal finances from our parents, it was evident that they taught us what they knew for the most part. And we’re forever grateful for that. However, we still believe that financial literacy starts at home. Parents are a child’s first teacher. So who better to teach a child than his parents? And even if you don’t know much about personal finances, it’s never too late start.

With that being said, we also feel that it would be nice if high schools and colleges taught more about personal finances as well. We spend a good chunk of our lives in the education system so why not learn some more useful life skills? We know that it can be easier said than done, especially depending on what is selected to be taught.

How We Plan To Teach Our Kids To Be Financially Literate

We’ve already started teaching our oldest son some of the concepts of money. He will be our guinea pig since he’s the firstborn. That seems to come with the territory that we don’t know much about because we’re both the babies of our families. Lol. But on a more serious note, he’s currently 4-years-old and at times we already see glimpses of him not understanding the concept of money and where it comes from. Not to mention how we have to work for it to be able to buy things and buy him things.

Currently, we will give him a dollar or two to clean up his toys in the basement. Not always, but sometimes if we know we’re going to a store where he might find a toy. Once we go to the store and he finds something, we will let him hand the cashier the money and make sure he waits for his change and receipt. And we make sure he says, “Thank you,” as manners are important in this process as well.

The part that we don’t really like about this process is that neither of us was raised receiving an allowance, especially not for things that we were supposed to do anyway. So we definitely need to figure out something else that is age-appropriate that we can pay him to do so that he can earn money.

Other than this, we’re not really sure what else to do to facilitate his learning at this young age. So we ordered the Financial Peace Jr Kit. It’s a kit by Dave Ramsey for kids ages 3-12 designed to help parents teach their kids about money. Once we use it for a while, we’ll check back in to let you know how we like it or not.

Final Thoughts

Financial literacy takes a village. No one should have to go it alone, whether they’re young or old. There are all types of information online as well as in books. And there might even be people open and willing to discuss their wins and failures with you as well. Although financial literacy should start at home, once a person is an adult, there is no excuse to be financially illiterate. Ignorance is not bliss; it’s costly.

What are your thoughts on financial literacy and whose responsibility is it? Let us know what you think!

Feature Image: Unsplash

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Filed Under: Personal + Finance Tagged With: financial freedom, financial health, financial literacy, life tips, parenting

See what’s happening on Instagram…

thinkingofsomeday

As of 1/8/2022, it’s been one year since we beca As of 1/8/2022, it’s been one year since we became mortgage free. What better way to celebrate than a date night in our paid off home?! 😏
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So how does it feel?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Financially, we invested the most money we've ever invested. We also increased our lifestyle a bit as well to keep a healthy balance.
 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Kim’s Perspective: 
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It’s been great. For the longest it felt surreal and unbelievable that we actually did it. I never really worried about paying off the mortgage because I knew that worst case scenario, it would be paid off in 15 years, which would’ve been when we were 45 (and that’s not a bad age at all). However, it’s been nice to know that it’s not something that Omar is stressing over anymore. And since it was one of his biggest dreams/goals, it’s nice knowing that I was able to support him 100% of the way in making this happen for us and our family. I’m glad this is something he wanted to pursue and that I was actually on board with it. What I’ve enjoyed most about it is being able to spend more money (of course 😆) because a lot of things were put on hold while we focused on the payoff. So now I feel like I’m at that point where I can make our house more of a home for us. It literally feels like we’re in a new space (mentally and physically) and we’re loving it.
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Omar’s Perspective:
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This past year has probably been the best year I've had in life. I've been the least stressed I've ever been, but took on the most responsibility at work I've ever taken on which lead to a promotion and an increase in income. This boggles my mind as more responsibility at work usually means more stress. I feel like I’ve been able to focus on other areas of my life more (my health/weight as well as making more of an effort to maintain my relationships with friends/family). Most importantly, I realize the strength of my marriage.  With the state of dating/relationships these days, I realize I won the lottery with Kim.  She's an amazing wife and mother. We've always had a good relationship but we're stronger than ever.  We started from the bottom now we're here (in my Drake voice). 🎶 #thislifeafterdebt
After taking some time to think about what we want After taking some time to think about what we wanted to focus on for this year, we decided that our word for the year is health.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Overall we both want to continue making healthier choices when it comes to eating. And we both want to focus on exercising more than we have in the past and be way more consistent with it.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
At the end of the day, what’s money, financial freedom/independence and wealth if you’re not healthy? And we definitely have high blood pressure, diabetes, etc that run in our families. We have kids to live for and that’s what we plan to do to the best of our ability!
This is what our financial goals ended up looking This is what our financial goals ended up looking like for this year. We’re pretty pleased with the outcome and the fact that we still enjoyed ourselves throughout the year and even made some pretty big purchases (like that whole couch saga I shared in my stories 😆). We’re looking forward to seeing what the next year holds! #thislifeafterdebt
We didn’t officially choose a word for 2021, but We didn’t officially choose a word for 2021, but if we had to say a word that was our word for this year it would be “intentional” by far.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
At the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021 we were very intentional about pulling money from an inherited IRA so that our tax bill wouldn’t be ridiculous like it would have been if we pulled a lump sum at one time. We then used the money to help pay off our mortgage 8 days into 2021.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
What we were even more  intentional about was our plan for what we were going to do with our mortgage payment once we didn’t have a mortgage anymore. We didn’t want to frivolously spend that money. So we actually came up with our plan a couple months before making our final payment. But literally after that payment on January 8, 2020, our new mortgage-free budget was in full effect! So yea, “intentional” is definitely a good word to sum up 2021 for us. #thislifeafterdebt
Some of the things we automate are:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Our Budget:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For the longest we use to type everything we were going to spend or save into our budget template. It wasn’t super time consuming but it wasn’t efficient when it came to our regular bills/expenses. Then one day we decided to prefill the template and copy and paste it month to month for our regular bills/expenses. All we have to do is add anything else we spend.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Savings / Investing:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Most of our savings/investing and even our gas and spending money our automated transfers. It beats having to go in and make multiple transfers to our personal accounts and our sinking funds. The 529 accounts for the kids and the Roth IRAs are automatically transferred. But for the brokerage account we have to manually transfer the money because it’s never the same amount each paycheck.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Bill Pay:
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I’ve never been a fan of bill pay because I don’t like companies having that type of access to my money. 🥴 And whenever they mess up and charge you too much, they’ll try to just credit your account instead of putting the money back in your bank account. 🙄 However, I’m a tad bit more trusting these days. Lol. Our home alarm had no option but to be auto drafted. Since the amount wasn’t much and is always the same price, I agreed. And the only other bill auto drafted is our cell phone bill after many many years (gasp! haha). Some of the other bills are paid via online bill pay via our banking account. #thisfinancialconfession
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Doing all of this has been a game changer and time saver. Are you team automate or team manual?
It’s been a minute since I’ve made a charcuter It’s been a minute since I’ve made a charcuterie board. So I figured Christmas brunch was the perfect time. And plus, that meant less time in the kitchen for me with cooking because I knew I was going to be cooking dinner today. #piecesofsomeday
Merry Christmas! And 2 pictures because it’s gua Merry Christmas! And 2 pictures because it’s guaranteed that someone isn’t going to be looking. 😆 #christmas2021 #piecesofsomeday
We purchased our house for $168.5k (after the down We purchased our house for $168.5k (after the down payment). We refinanced at $165k.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If we took 30 years to pay it off, our total would’ve been $293k.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If we paid the 30-year mortgage like a 15, then it would’ve been $225k.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
After we refinanced to a 15-year, if we took 15 years to pay it off, then our total would’ve been $205k.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Instead, we paid off our mortgage in a little over 7.5 years.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
We ended up paying a total of $200k with interest.
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Paying $200k for this home with how it looked when we purchased it sounded a lot better than having to pay a total of $293k if we end up being here for 30 years! This was yet another factor that helped us decide to pay it off early. #thislifeafterdebt
Part of the reason we decided to refinance and eve Part of the reason we decided to refinance and even pay our house off early is because of the amount of money we were paying in interest on our mortgage. So of course, several months after we paid off the mortgage I began to wonder just how much did we really pay in interest. So I asked Omar if there was a way to figure it out. At first he was like, “Really Kim?” 😳 And of course I was like, “Ummm yea.” 😬 Lol.
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Jun 2013 is when we bought the house. So there wasn’t much interest paid then.
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2014 and 2015 is still when we had the 30-year mortgage. It’s also the years that we paid the most interest. We refinanced at the end of 2015.
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2016 is when we made our first payment with the 15-year mortgage. It’s crazy how the amount of interest decreased based off that alone.
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2019 is when we decided to pay off our mortgage early. It was supposed to take 6 years. But instead we used RSUs and sped it up tremendously.
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Jan 2021 is when we paid it off before our first payment would’ve been due. $27 was the last bit of interest we paid on our mortgage.
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Grand total: $35,102.
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If we had continue to just make regular payments on the 15-year mortgage, we would’ve paid a total of $56,279. A difference of $21,177. 🙌🏽 🙌🏽 #thislifeafterdebt
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Comments

  1. Kris says

    April 16, 2019 at 4:07 pm

    I didn’t know that it was financial literacy month as well, probably because it’s tax season with Americans getting their taxes done.
    I think parents giving their kids financial tips is a great start to have them understand money. If schools are not going to provide personal finance education(which they should) then the parents should have their kids be aware of how money works. And they don’t have to an expert at it, just the basics like saving, handling credit cards, making purchasing decisions and budgeting.
    Thanks for sharing your financial background Kim and Omar! It’s great to know how people got their start on understanding money. It’s really important to be aware of it and pass down their knowledge to the next generation.

    • Kim says

      April 16, 2019 at 9:23 pm

      I agree that it’s interesting to see how each person came to know what they know about personal finance. And it’s definitely important to be educated at least somewhat in order to pass that knowledge on to the next generation. Otherwise, they’re likely to make the same mistakes.

  2. Yvonne says

    April 24, 2019 at 2:52 pm

    This was a great read…..could not agree more of the importance of teaching the child/ten….if I could re live those days I would do things so differently…..we would often say and hear others say, we grew up poor but never knew it….nothing was discussed around the house….I would share the good times and the struggles…good step to teach the young one….might have ideas how to help..😊

    • Kim says

      April 29, 2019 at 9:53 am

      I’ve heard people say that as well and didn’t grow up with everything neither. I think the key would be finding the balance of what to share and what not to share with kids.

  3. GYM says

    May 5, 2019 at 12:34 am

    Loved reading about your financial backgrounds, especially both your perspectives! 🙂

    Paying $1 to clean up toys sounds like a good idea.

    • Kim says

      May 5, 2019 at 9:24 pm

      Thanks, GYM! So far the idea is working out some. Sometimes he still doesn’t want to clean up his toys. Lol.

  4. Nate Matherson says

    June 21, 2019 at 1:17 pm

    This is such an important topic! I am really happy that more people are starting to push for financial literacy classes to become part of the high school curriculm. Too many college students head off to campus without having any of the basics.

    Great post!

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A married couple making someday a reality all while balancing family + finances + avoiding debt. Find out more about us, here.

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See what’s happening on Instagram

thinkingofsomeday

As of 1/8/2022, it’s been one year since we beca As of 1/8/2022, it’s been one year since we became mortgage free. What better way to celebrate than a date night in our paid off home?! 😏
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So how does it feel?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Financially, we invested the most money we've ever invested. We also increased our lifestyle a bit as well to keep a healthy balance.
 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Kim’s Perspective: 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
It’s been great. For the longest it felt surreal and unbelievable that we actually did it. I never really worried about paying off the mortgage because I knew that worst case scenario, it would be paid off in 15 years, which would’ve been when we were 45 (and that’s not a bad age at all). However, it’s been nice to know that it’s not something that Omar is stressing over anymore. And since it was one of his biggest dreams/goals, it’s nice knowing that I was able to support him 100% of the way in making this happen for us and our family. I’m glad this is something he wanted to pursue and that I was actually on board with it. What I’ve enjoyed most about it is being able to spend more money (of course 😆) because a lot of things were put on hold while we focused on the payoff. So now I feel like I’m at that point where I can make our house more of a home for us. It literally feels like we’re in a new space (mentally and physically) and we’re loving it.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Omar’s Perspective:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This past year has probably been the best year I've had in life. I've been the least stressed I've ever been, but took on the most responsibility at work I've ever taken on which lead to a promotion and an increase in income. This boggles my mind as more responsibility at work usually means more stress. I feel like I’ve been able to focus on other areas of my life more (my health/weight as well as making more of an effort to maintain my relationships with friends/family). Most importantly, I realize the strength of my marriage.  With the state of dating/relationships these days, I realize I won the lottery with Kim.  She's an amazing wife and mother. We've always had a good relationship but we're stronger than ever.  We started from the bottom now we're here (in my Drake voice). 🎶 #thislifeafterdebt
After taking some time to think about what we want After taking some time to think about what we wanted to focus on for this year, we decided that our word for the year is health.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Overall we both want to continue making healthier choices when it comes to eating. And we both want to focus on exercising more than we have in the past and be way more consistent with it.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
At the end of the day, what’s money, financial freedom/independence and wealth if you’re not healthy? And we definitely have high blood pressure, diabetes, etc that run in our families. We have kids to live for and that’s what we plan to do to the best of our ability!
This is what our financial goals ended up looking This is what our financial goals ended up looking like for this year. We’re pretty pleased with the outcome and the fact that we still enjoyed ourselves throughout the year and even made some pretty big purchases (like that whole couch saga I shared in my stories 😆). We’re looking forward to seeing what the next year holds! #thislifeafterdebt
We didn’t officially choose a word for 2021, but We didn’t officially choose a word for 2021, but if we had to say a word that was our word for this year it would be “intentional” by far.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
At the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021 we were very intentional about pulling money from an inherited IRA so that our tax bill wouldn’t be ridiculous like it would have been if we pulled a lump sum at one time. We then used the money to help pay off our mortgage 8 days into 2021.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
What we were even more  intentional about was our plan for what we were going to do with our mortgage payment once we didn’t have a mortgage anymore. We didn’t want to frivolously spend that money. So we actually came up with our plan a couple months before making our final payment. But literally after that payment on January 8, 2020, our new mortgage-free budget was in full effect! So yea, “intentional” is definitely a good word to sum up 2021 for us. #thislifeafterdebt
Some of the things we automate are:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Our Budget:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
For the longest we use to type everything we were going to spend or save into our budget template. It wasn’t super time consuming but it wasn’t efficient when it came to our regular bills/expenses. Then one day we decided to prefill the template and copy and paste it month to month for our regular bills/expenses. All we have to do is add anything else we spend.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Savings / Investing:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Most of our savings/investing and even our gas and spending money our automated transfers. It beats having to go in and make multiple transfers to our personal accounts and our sinking funds. The 529 accounts for the kids and the Roth IRAs are automatically transferred. But for the brokerage account we have to manually transfer the money because it’s never the same amount each paycheck.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Bill Pay:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I’ve never been a fan of bill pay because I don’t like companies having that type of access to my money. 🥴 And whenever they mess up and charge you too much, they’ll try to just credit your account instead of putting the money back in your bank account. 🙄 However, I’m a tad bit more trusting these days. Lol. Our home alarm had no option but to be auto drafted. Since the amount wasn’t much and is always the same price, I agreed. And the only other bill auto drafted is our cell phone bill after many many years (gasp! haha). Some of the other bills are paid via online bill pay via our banking account. #thisfinancialconfession
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Doing all of this has been a game changer and time saver. Are you team automate or team manual?
It’s been a minute since I’ve made a charcuter It’s been a minute since I’ve made a charcuterie board. So I figured Christmas brunch was the perfect time. And plus, that meant less time in the kitchen for me with cooking because I knew I was going to be cooking dinner today. #piecesofsomeday
Merry Christmas! And 2 pictures because it’s gua Merry Christmas! And 2 pictures because it’s guaranteed that someone isn’t going to be looking. 😆 #christmas2021 #piecesofsomeday
We purchased our house for $168.5k (after the down We purchased our house for $168.5k (after the down payment). We refinanced at $165k.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If we took 30 years to pay it off, our total would’ve been $293k.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If we paid the 30-year mortgage like a 15, then it would’ve been $225k.
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After we refinanced to a 15-year, if we took 15 years to pay it off, then our total would’ve been $205k.
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Instead, we paid off our mortgage in a little over 7.5 years.
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We ended up paying a total of $200k with interest.
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Paying $200k for this home with how it looked when we purchased it sounded a lot better than having to pay a total of $293k if we end up being here for 30 years! This was yet another factor that helped us decide to pay it off early. #thislifeafterdebt
Part of the reason we decided to refinance and eve Part of the reason we decided to refinance and even pay our house off early is because of the amount of money we were paying in interest on our mortgage. So of course, several months after we paid off the mortgage I began to wonder just how much did we really pay in interest. So I asked Omar if there was a way to figure it out. At first he was like, “Really Kim?” 😳 And of course I was like, “Ummm yea.” 😬 Lol.
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Jun 2013 is when we bought the house. So there wasn’t much interest paid then.
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2014 and 2015 is still when we had the 30-year mortgage. It’s also the years that we paid the most interest. We refinanced at the end of 2015.
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2016 is when we made our first payment with the 15-year mortgage. It’s crazy how the amount of interest decreased based off that alone.
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2019 is when we decided to pay off our mortgage early. It was supposed to take 6 years. But instead we used RSUs and sped it up tremendously.
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Jan 2021 is when we paid it off before our first payment would’ve been due. $27 was the last bit of interest we paid on our mortgage.
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Grand total: $35,102.
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If we had continue to just make regular payments on the 15-year mortgage, we would’ve paid a total of $56,279. A difference of $21,177. 🙌🏽 🙌🏽 #thislifeafterdebt
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