By: Revanche

Net Worth: September 2014

September 22, 2014

DollarSign

Change from August: 2% increase

Change from January: 272% increase

On Money

I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!

***

Bill creep:  Our cell phone discount was eliminated, so that went up $10/month. Our internet promotion (though I was lied to by the CSR who told me it was a bundle price, NOT a promotion) expired so that bill jumped 20%. The sewer/water bill went up another $8 bimonthly.

I’ve made calls to bring down the cost of what I could but in the end, the total is still up from three months ago which is frustrating.

***

Mortgage thoughts:  Congratulations to SP on the purchase of their new house!

This made me curious. We’ve been working away at the mortgage, which we couldn’t refinance for reasons that still irritate me, and putting a lump sum toward principal each year. It’s made a difference! In spite of the high interest rate, compared to what we could have gotten in a refi, we’re down to 80% of the original mortgage or 60% of the total cost left.

That’s not huge but it is a significant amount and gives me hope that if we batter away at this a bit more, we’ll free up cash flow sooner than I had hoped. The mortgage payoff calculator suggests that if we paid an additional $500/month, we’d pay this sucker off in 15 years from now, shaving off nearly a third of the full term. Since we do a lump sum towards principal once a year, I wonder how much of a difference that makes.

Anyway, this is mostly idle curiosity since my brain immediately demands to know what I want to do with this place: make it a rental? Stick it out? Sell it? And I don’t have those answers.

***

Mortgage, continued: We had a payment snafu where the mortgage payment didn’t process. PiC was positive he’d paid it and he’s never been late or missed one, but the bank’s immediate reaction was to ding us with a $100 fee and tell us about mortgage modification. He had to call and chat with them, and the fee was removed, but that was PITA.

I’ve since set up an automated payment for that to come out of our joint checking account which tells us when they’re going to send and when they have sent payments.

***

We are so close to getting 2013 taxes done I can nearly taste it!  Working with a new CPA, however, does require a bit more due diligence and legwork on my part. I’ve reviewed the draft filing and sent back a long list of corrections and questions. If this goes well, we’ll dive into 2014 preparations because our first quarter of 2015 is going to be pretty hectic between home and work life; I don’t have time for hand-holding.

On Life

Not a heck of a lot to say here: we had a lot of change and it’s been hard.

5 Responses to “Net Worth: September 2014”

  1. Leigh says:

    I have automatic payments set up. If I make a payment early, then my mortgage lender doesn’t take out the automatic one. I love having it as a backup for the months where I don’t make a modified payment!

    Yay for having the first 20% of your mortgage paid off! 🙂
    Leigh recently posted…August 2014 net worth update (+21.1%)My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      I basically have auto-payment now as a withdrawal from a separate checking account because the lender’s the one who screwed up the payment in the first place 🙂 You’d think they’d be on top of withdrawing money!

  2. Shelley says:

    If memory serves me correctly there is some sort of mandatory mortgage insurance included in your payments that can be dropped once you have the mortgage down to 80%. It’s not a lot of money in my experience, but it’s something less to pay. I’m sure you know about this, but I thought I’d mention it.

    • Revanche says:

      PMI! We didn’t have it b/c we didn’t take out the mortgage for more than 80% of the actual purchase price; we’re down to 80% of the actual loan amount.

  3. DivHut says:

    Thanks for sharing your net worth update. Bill creep always sucks. It’s something you have to be constantly vigilant about. Call and threaten to cancel do whatever it takes to keep getting lower monthly’s on whatever service you are using.
    DivHut recently posted…Are These Dividend Stocks Solid As Concrete?My Profile

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