I’m excited for tomorrow. I must admit that the 8th of every month is my
favorite financial day. I actually
count down the days to the 8th of every month. What could be so exciting you ask?
Well interesting enough the 8th is not my payday. The 8th is the day that my
mortgage payment comes out of my bank account. Yes you read that right, and no I don’t need a CAT
scan. I love paying my mortgage
every month. Let me fill you in on
why.
It means that every month I own just a little bit more of my
house. Sure if you ask me if I own
a house the answer will be yes.
Truthfully though I only own 21% of my house (as you can see on my lovely new sidebar). The bank owns the rest. Every time I make a payment though I own a bit more. I decided before I bought the house
that my goal would be to be mortgage free in 5 years, which can be accomplished
by doubling up each and every monthly payment and by paying the annual 10% lump
sum.
To make how much of my home I owned more concrete and to
keep myself motivated one of the first things I did after moving in was to
paint a line the length of one of the walls downstairs. This line represents the entire length
of my house and is divided into increments of 10%.
The first 20% of the line is decorated to show the
milestones in my life that I went through to accumulate my down payment. Every month I recalculate what
percentage of the house I own and put a little mark on the line. Every month this mark moves a little
bit further along and I own just a little bit more of my house.
Moving the line along is exciting for me, like a kid who is
waiting for Christmas. Looking at
the portion of the line that I own fills me with pride and with memories of the
hard work I put in to get to this point.
Looking at the part of the line still owned by the bank motivates me to
keep doubling up my monthly payments and saving for the 10% lump sums.
Do you know how much of your house you own? How do you motivate yourself to pay
down your mortgage faster?
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