Debt-free here I come!
Today we close on our home refinance! We have lived in this house for 21 years. We have never refinanced the first, although we have had a second for several years and have refinanced it a couple of times. When I went to the bank to see about increasing the line of credit to pay off some other bills, my banker suggested we do a complete refinance. I was leery at first, but realized my 21 year old adjustable rate mortgage, while it had been great for the past few years of record low interest rates (it has been at about 3.2% for the past several years), was headed up with the recent rate increases. It had already gone to 5.32% and was set to adjust next year at least half a percent, if not a full percent, higher. The second was a whopping 7.65% and had 13 years left on it. A complete refinance sounded like a good idea if the interest rate was decent. We ended up with a 15 year no points loan at 5.65% fixed. That saves us $200/month on just the mortgage payments! I got enough to pay off all the credit cards (which had gotten a bit out of control over the past year) and leave us money in the bank for emergencies, college tuition deposits, and such, saving us another $830/month! That means I can actually start SAVING money! What a novel idea! It also means that we should only have to borrow half as much for college each year as we have been borrowing via a PLUS loan. For the first time in our lives we will be on the road to freedom from debt. In 15 years the house will be paid for - just two years later than had we not done this - and in the meantime, we can actually put moneyin savings each month and put aside more for retirement. Tom's hope of retiring in 2-4 years is now a real possibility instead of a pipe dream. I am so excited! Also, I found out how much our house appraised for just last week and was stunned. 3 years ago it appraised at $140,000. The latest appraisal came in at$280,000!!! That's about $30,000 higher than I had even hoped it would appraise for (I know, bad grammar). Just shows how crazy the real estate market has gotten. Anyway, I guess we'll have the money in our account in 3 days and I can send the credit card companies their last payment. Yippeee!
