Mortgage Payoff Progress — Or Lack Thereof
Paying off our house this year is our primary goal. Except, apparently it isn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still what I want to do. But this is where that actions speak louder than words thing comes in.
Last month, I spent a little over $1250 to pay for our impromptu trip to Paris — money that I could have sent to the mortgage. Then I bought the plane tickets for our long-planned trip to New Zealand. Again, money that I could have sent to the mortgage (but I never intended to, so that part’s ok.)
I’ve also gone out to eat a lot, bought clothes, and spent some fairly big bucks improving and marketing my debt reduction app. And I have a teenage son who’ll be headed to college this fall — college that we don’t yet have enough saved for.
And yes, we’ve sent money to the mortgage too.
But we’ve really gotten off track in April. As of March, we were still doing pretty well — we were behind, but not that behind. It’s gotten worse since then though, and we’ll now need to send more than $7000 per month in order to come close to our goal.
So in addition to working to earn more money, we’ll be looking at ways to cut more (non-New Zealand) expenses from our spending. Big compromise, huh? But it won’t hurt us to at least look. (And ideally take action!)
Am I the only one whose goals conflict with their actions like this? We have made a lot of progress on the mortgage, but it really stalled out here in April. Time to get back on the bandwagon.
WOW, do I hear you!
At the start of this year, my goal was to make extra payments on my mortgage. So far, I have paid off €2300.
BUT, last week, my boss convinced me to go to law school…. so I’ve got to start saving for the next 3 years. I think I’m having a mid-life crisis, but nothing ventured, nothing gained!
WISH ME LUCK!
Good luck! (And maybe your boss will pay for some or all of law school, since he or she clearly thinks it’s a good idea…)
No I think a break from routine is needed to re-energize. The trip to Paris, I would treat it as such!
It was very strange during the trip to Paris. All I did was check email once a day using the hard-to-keep-connected wireless on my husband’s phone (since my phone just would NOT connect for some reason.) That’s certainly the least amount of work I’ve done in a long time.
No worries, Jackie.
It doesn’t matter how many times you fall off the horse, but how many times you get back in the saddle. It happens to every single last one of us. I just got back on track after a couple of months of less than optimal spending. The only real repercussion was that some of my long term plans may have gotten pushed back a bit. So maybe you’ll pay off your mortgage in 16 months rather than 12. At least you have the wherewithal to get yourself back on track. Lots of folks don’t.
It’s nothing to beat yourself up over, just get back on track.
Good point. Getting back on track is what’s important. I just need to actually do it instead of talking about doing it ;)
I just posted a new blog last night that you might find useful. It’s about using milestones to break up large goals into smaller chunks.
Thanks for letting me know. Milestones are definitely good ways to break up goals.