I have no food waste, thus once again no picture. I'll attribute my low food waste over the past few weeks to the fact that we are smack dab in the middle of summer. For me that means a lot of sandwiches and salads because it's just to hot for a warm supper. (The other option is that I've just been too lazy to make proper supers every night . . . I think I'll stick with the "it's summer" line.)
So, on to building my nest. When I was in high school I had a very knowledgeable and very strict French teacher. I loved her classes and one of the things that I remember most was the little phrases that she would repeat to us often. (Mostly when people weren't doing their homework.) One of my favourite sayings was "Petit a petit l'oiseau fait son nid" for the non-franco's among my readers it means"little by little the bird builds it's nest."
For some reason I have been thinking about this tid bit of wisdom recently. My faithful readers know that I plan on paying off my mortgage in 5 years by both doubling up my monthly payments and paying of 10% of my mortgage on each anniversary ( You can read the details of my plan in my post "Mortgage Plan Revisited - Monthly Payments"and in "Mortgage Plan Revisited - Yearly 10%".) With my teachers wisdom bouncing around my brain I was wondering which part of my plan had the most impact on getting my house paid off. So I did the math:
Downpayment - 20%
Yearly 10% - 33%
Monthly payments - 47%
The math dosen't lie. As much as walking into the bank and throwing $15,200 against my mortgage is exciting and watching years drop off my mortgage in an instant is thrilling the reality is that most of the progress made on my mortgage will not be done in a single fell swoop. Most of it will be done patiently day by day as I keep in control of my money so that, come the 8th of the month, I have the ability to pay yet another double up. Living frugally and below my means will have much more of an impact than earning more money for my 10% payments, (not that I won't be doing both.)
As my teacher said "Petit a petit l'oiseau fait son nid" so little by little I will build my own nest.
The personal finance blog of a finance enthusiast. Infused with practical tips, personal stories, and a healthy dose of humour.
Very interesting calculation. I guess it's true that plugging along does result in the biggest piece of the pie.
ReplyDeleteI was a bit surprised that the big chunks weren't more than all the little pieces, but like so many things it's the attention to detail that counts.
DeleteLots of things to think about when paying off a mortgage--your interest rate, the current interest your money can earn, what part of the loan you are in, the beginning where you are paying mostly interest or the end when you are paying mostly principle, and whether or not you can afford to have your money tied up in a non-liquid investment.
ReplyDeleteWe paid our house off and used different strategies depending where we were in the life of the loan. However, what we used the most was the steady little by little strategy that you mention.
I did a lot of research before buying my house and decided to only buy if I could realistically pay it off in 5 years. That's when my term ends and it will let me move onto the next step of my life with most of my pay check free to use for whatever I want!
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