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Mortgage Payoff Plan Update: Jan-Mar 2020 (year 2)

April 2, 2020 By Thinking of Someday

Well… it’s been a hell of a 1st quarter with COVID19. It’s slowed down our mortgage pay off plan significantly. The main reason being that the value of all stocks has dropped including the RSU’s we receive. We don’t sell low if we don’t have to. So we’re planning to hold on to them until things stabilize with the stock market. However, we’re still planning to do our 70/30 split thus far.

The main change we’re making to our finances considering everything that is going on is that we’re aiming to save that 70% that we would typically otherwise spend or sometimes save depending on what we had going on. There haven’t been any signs that either of us will be let go from our jobs, but sometimes these things don’t come with any warnings. So we feel it’s better to be safe than sorry. For more on what we’re planning to do and if you just need some encouragement along the way, you can check out our post What We’re Doing In This Market . Otherwise, let’s get started with the point of this post… Our Quarter 1 Update!

The Numbers 

Even with COVID19 raising hell across the country we still made significant progress on paying down our mortgage. We honestly do think things will turn around this year (hopefully!) and we’ll still end up hitting our goal. The numbers are as follows for the first quarter of 2020 (Jan-Mar):

** note: Principal refers to the regular part of our payment that goes towards the mortgage principal. Additional refers to any extra money from our budget unless otherwise stated.

January

  • Principal = 891.11
  • Additional = 439.38
  • Total: 1330.49

February 

  • Principal = 894.40
  • Additional = 2598.48
    • Budget = 808.51
    • RSUs = 1789.97
  • Total: 3492.88

March 

  • Principal = 916.34
  • Additional = 5768.20
    • Budget = 531.20
    • Tax Refund = 5237.00
  • Total: 6684.54

When we first started this mortgage pay off journey at the beginning of 2019, our principal balance was $135,240.09. At the beginning of 2020, our principal balance was $99,507.37.  At the end of the first quarter for 2020,we hit a milestone and made it below $90k!! The principal balance is now $87,999.46! We paid off $11,507.91 this quarter.  Our goal for the year was to pay off $37,000 of our mortgage principal. We are currently at 31% of our goal for the year!

Our Visual

We were able to color 2 lines in March within 5 days of each other! This is when we went from below $95k to below $90k.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kim+Omar | Thinking of Someday (@thinkingofsomeday) on Mar 9, 2020 at 5:14pm PDT

Final Thoughts

While our mortgage payoff progress is being slowed up by not cashing out the RSUs at this time, we’re fortunate that we’re able to at least still do our 70/30 split. Seeing what’s happening across the country (and the world) now has made us even more determined to pay off our mortgage as soon as possible. It’ll definitely give us one less thing to worry about!

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Related

Filed Under: Personal + Finance Tagged With: debt freedom, mortgage, mortgage free journey

See what’s happening on Instagram…

thinkingofsomeday

I quit my job at the end of April and it’s been I quit my job at the end of April and it’s been great so far.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Why did I quit?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The TL; DR version is: It was a compromise between Omar and I when it came to having another baby. Some people might feel a way about this, but at the end of the day, our marriage  of 10 years and relationship of almost 20 years has survived off of lots of communication, compromise, and comprehension. This is how we have managed to do everything we’ve set out to do. And this phase of life is no different.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If you want the full version of the story, you can check out my stories. 😉
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt
Some of the pics and excitement from our gender re Some of the pics and excitement from our gender reveal. Needless to say, this was an exciting moment to share with our boys and parents. 💖
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt #babynumber3 #partyof5 #budgetbuster)
It’s a… gender reveal!! 🖤💙💖🖤

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt #babynumber3 #partyof5 #budgetbuster)
🖤 🖤 + 🖤
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt #babynumber3 #partyof5 #budgetbuster 😆)
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?
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Comments

  1. Katrice says

    April 6, 2020 at 9:54 am

    Thank you guys for sharing your continued progress during the world’s pandemic. It is such a blessing to see such reliance. I am keeping hope alive with you both in regards to reaching your mortgage goals for this year and possibly exceeding them. You both had a plan initially and you are sticking with it, as well as making the necessary adjustments when applicable. We are also grateful during this to be where we are financial and to still be employed. We made our financial changes three years ago. We had no idea that the world would be going through a pandemic. There is a miracle in the mess. I believe that! I am hopeful that we will not miss our opportunities during this pandemic to rise and be stronger than we were before.

    I am very happy for you both and we shall overcome in the mist of adversity.

    • Katrice says

      April 6, 2020 at 10:00 am

      I left out the d in the word mist. It is supposed be midst lol.

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Hey! We’re Omar + Kim.

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

I quit my job at the end of April and it’s been I quit my job at the end of April and it’s been great so far.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Why did I quit?
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The TL; DR version is: It was a compromise between Omar and I when it came to having another baby. Some people might feel a way about this, but at the end of the day, our marriage  of 10 years and relationship of almost 20 years has survived off of lots of communication, compromise, and comprehension. This is how we have managed to do everything we’ve set out to do. And this phase of life is no different.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If you want the full version of the story, you can check out my stories. 😉
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt
Some of the pics and excitement from our gender re Some of the pics and excitement from our gender reveal. Needless to say, this was an exciting moment to share with our boys and parents. 💖
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt #babynumber3 #partyof5 #budgetbuster)
It’s a… gender reveal!! 🖤💙💖🖤

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt #babynumber3 #partyof5 #budgetbuster)
🖤 🖤 + 🖤
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
(#piecesofsomeday #thislifeafterdebt #babynumber3 #partyof5 #budgetbuster 😆)
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?
Follow Us

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