At the end of August, our remaining balance is at 30.48% of our original mortgage that we took out in 2007. That’s a reduction of 2.22%.

How much longer?

Once all of August’s payments are applied, we’ll have reduced our mortgage balance by about $3020 this month. We’re marching towards $40k and will be there by October 1. We’ve only got 14 payments left! That means our mortgage will be paid off on November 1, 2018.

If you’ve followed this series each month, you might be wondering why we’re still at 14 payments and the payment date has been pushed back. I had originally planned on teaching a class at a local community college this fall. However, due to circumstances beyond my control (you wouldn’t believe them if I told you), I wasn’t allowed to teach the class. They’re going to try to correct the issue so I can in the future but hopefully, the mortgage will be paid off by then.

I had to put those adjustments into the forecast which pushed things back another month and added the payment back on. In addition, we started homeschooling this fall with our two daughters. That means they are involved in activities which have an extra cost. I’ve had to trim back the mortgage payoff by a slight amount ($115 a month) to fund those activities. Unfortunately, that means the margin we had to make sure that we don’t add any extra payments has dissolved. I’m hoping to recover it in the next few months by picking up more side work.

Budget Series

I’ll be continuing the series that covers our budget. The next category we’ll be covering is restaurants and dining out. Everyone likes eating out, but how much is too much? What do we consider dining out versus groceries? You’ll learn soon in the next blog post.

Photo by Got Credit