It’s the end of June, so it’s time for me to share the progress of our 2012 Financial Goals. I like to share our goals with my readers because it helps me stay accountable (knowing I have to report back motivates me) and I always want you to see that you can do it too. Sit down with your accounts, bills, and partner and make a plan to tackle your debt and dig yourself out of that hole. Then your money will be yours to do with what you choose. For us, that means retirement and education funds (that’s our 2013 goal!), and hopefully a vacation as well. But I’m jumping ahead of myself here! Back to the 2012 plan:
1) Pay off our second mortgage by February 20th. DONE!
Technically it wasn’t the 20th, but it was by March 1st–so I’m letting it count! This is the momentum that pushes the whole debt-free train forward. With this paid off, we are no longer upside-down on our house, so we can refinance (see below). This is where we’ve pushed all our extra money in the last six months, and now it’s done!
2) Refinance our mortgage by the end of March. LATE BUT DONE!
Wow, this took way longer than I thought. We turned all our paperwork in and then waited and waited. We just closed on the new mortgage last Monday, so right now I’m shuffling money around to cover that big check and waiting to get a refund from the current lender of our escrow and taxes, quite a lot to not have in the bank! We’ll get the money back, but it makes things very tight through July. The good news is, we dropped 2% in interest and now have a fixed rate. Whoo hoo!
3) Continue the Debt Payoff towards our three remaining debts and pay off by the end of December. ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO!
We have paid off our HVAC and are now down to a 0% car loan (due June 2013) and the law school student loans. This is where my husband and I differ; I want the psychological high of paying off the car loan (it’s so small) just to have it crossed off the list, but since it doesn’t charge interest, we should pay the student loan first. I need to look at our numbers again once we get our mortgage check back and see how quickly we can pay it all off. Our original goal was by the end of 2012, but the HVAC expense hit us hard.
We continue to celebrate our progress whenever we can. This time, when we paid off the HVAC loan, everyone got to pick out a video game as a treat. It was $50 out of our budget to thank everyone for their hard work and diligence (especially the kids, who have been great about all the “no’s” to entertainment, eating out and other expenses).
How are your 2012 financial goals coming along?
Image from .oskar at Flickr
Awesome job Gina!!! We just refinanced too
That is fantastic! Go Gina!
I should of answered your question too.
Last week was a mess so we are still catching up but I need to get back on my financial goals and start thinking about a financial planner. I have a couple names just need to do it.
Here is my last update. Hope to do another one soon….
http://www.redberrydeals.com/2012/06/update-2012-savings-challenge/