I believe my mortgage pay off story is unusual so I thought I'd share it with my fellow savers.
We bought our house for 172k in the Sacramento area in 1998 (excellent and lucky timing for us) with 40K down. We had a monthly mortgage payment of about 1100 a month with a 7.25%rate.
I started working at a restaurant doing pizza/pasta deliveries soon after that, and was soon up to full time, and my wife got a full time teaching job as well. So, during 1999 we were working up a storm, and probably paid off about 20k extra on the mortgage. My wife quit teaching with the birth of our second child in 2000, and I really went into action at the restaurant, going up to six dinner shifts and five lunch shifts a week, about 42 hours a week, alot of driving.
Over the next few years we kept up that level of prepaying the mortgage principle. In 2002, the owner of our restaurant mentioned getting a home equity line of credit as an indirect way to refinance and this I did. At that point I had about 50K left on the mortgage, and I paid that 7.25% loan off with a 4.5% adjustable Heloc loan of 50 k. Then, it was a practically daily assault on that HELOC loan (the interest amortized daily so it made since to make frequent payment trips to wipe out as much interest as possible).
I think over the next year and a half I went to the bank about 100 times with various amounts of cash. Finally, with about 20K left in late 2003, my parents loaned me 20 k. With this money I paid off the heloc, and then began paying my parents off. I was making very good money for a delivery driver back then, great per hour, and was working lots of hours, so I think I impressed my parents with my constant stream of FED EX envelopes full of cash. By October 2004 I had paid off all debts related to our home mortgage and what a nice feeling. From then on, it was time to pump money into stocks, Prosper loans, and then later into buying stock in the restaurant I work at.
I have eased off working so hard however, now only 4 nights five days, and 30 hours a week.
We bought our house for 172k in the Sacramento area in 1998 (excellent and lucky timing for us) with 40K down. We had a monthly mortgage payment of about 1100 a month with a 7.25%rate.
I started working at a restaurant doing pizza/pasta deliveries soon after that, and was soon up to full time, and my wife got a full time teaching job as well. So, during 1999 we were working up a storm, and probably paid off about 20k extra on the mortgage. My wife quit teaching with the birth of our second child in 2000, and I really went into action at the restaurant, going up to six dinner shifts and five lunch shifts a week, about 42 hours a week, alot of driving.
Over the next few years we kept up that level of prepaying the mortgage principle. In 2002, the owner of our restaurant mentioned getting a home equity line of credit as an indirect way to refinance and this I did. At that point I had about 50K left on the mortgage, and I paid that 7.25% loan off with a 4.5% adjustable Heloc loan of 50 k. Then, it was a practically daily assault on that HELOC loan (the interest amortized daily so it made since to make frequent payment trips to wipe out as much interest as possible).
I think over the next year and a half I went to the bank about 100 times with various amounts of cash. Finally, with about 20K left in late 2003, my parents loaned me 20 k. With this money I paid off the heloc, and then began paying my parents off. I was making very good money for a delivery driver back then, great per hour, and was working lots of hours, so I think I impressed my parents with my constant stream of FED EX envelopes full of cash. By October 2004 I had paid off all debts related to our home mortgage and what a nice feeling. From then on, it was time to pump money into stocks, Prosper loans, and then later into buying stock in the restaurant I work at.
I have eased off working so hard however, now only 4 nights five days, and 30 hours a week.
}. All this to say I know for sure you were thinking and doing something totally different from most the locals.
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