Quantcast

--{ Thursday GMT }--

Pesqueeb

bicycle in airplane hangar
Feb 2, 2007
40,431
16,963
Riding the baggage carousel.
While I am no stoney... paying your mortgage off at 43 should allow you to increase your fun spending and think about cutting a few years off your work life. Mortgage interest is the suck.
Mostly this. I'm generally of the opinion that only a sucker pays interest, though in the case of a house, it seems rather unavoidable. It's also been my thought that being in my early-mid 40's with no mortgage is pretty awesome, and would certainly allow my to do a lot of things my peers will most likely not be doing. Travel, bikes, skiing, bongshedding, etc.

It all depends on the rate, which iirc is stupid low from when you refinanced. Depending on your rate, you're probably better off putting the extra into your retirement accounts. RoR tends to be higher long term and you get the tax deduction now. Your specific details will determine everything though. A 16% savings rate is great though, so props there.
I'll be in touch with you soon.

What'd you buy to improve your life? More travel yet? Less overtime? A Model 3? :D
That's the thing that holds me up. There honestly isn't much I'd change. I'd love to not have to show up to the salt pit 4 days a week, because that place is full of teh dum, but else wise? We've got it pretty dang good. I'm a college drop out with a technical degree, I'm in a great financial place, the girls are at a good school (teaching and learning, respectively) and for the most part we do the things we want to do to a reasonable degree. Would more money be nice? Sure. But so would more free time, and so would not going to work at all. We're comfortable and our bills are covered. OT is for toys. More travel would be nice of course, but we do a fair amount now given our time constraints, school, bills, etc. I figure real travel time is post mortgage. As for a model 3, I figure we ought to finish paying for the one we just got first. :)
 
Last edited:

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,500
7,843
If you just stopped paying extra on your mortgage you could up your travel, bikes, skiing, bongshedding quota immediately. I don't see why it disappearing has to be some big milestone, especially given a good effective rate.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,580
20,393
Sleazattle
If you just stopped paying extra on your mortgage you could up your travel, bikes, skiing, bongshedding quota immediately. I don't see why it disappearing has to be some big milestone, especially given a good effective rate.
I have always balanced paying off debt vs having cash on hand. I pay extra on the mortgage, and could put more into retirement, but I like having a good source of liquid funds in case shit goes sideways. I can cruise for a year with no income no problem, and have a track history of taking that option whenever possible.

That is one of the things that concerns me a bit with the move to Seattle. The cost of housing is really high where I want to be. New gig will more than cover that increase, but my rainy day fund goes from a year to much less than a year.
 

stoney

Part of the unwashed, middle-American horde
Jul 26, 2006
21,697
7,385
Colorado
Mint makes my head hurt sometimes. I've been trying to balance income to spending to savings and have not been able to get it to balance for 4 months. Turns out that it was identifying retirement plan contributions as income *facepalm*.

There is a reason I use Mint for non-investment accounts and Personal Capital (tools, not mgmt) for investments. Intuit just sucks at investment accounts, be it Quicken or Mint.
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
If you just stopped paying extra on your mortgage you could up your travel, bikes, skiing, bongshedding quota immediately. I don't see why it disappearing has to be some big milestone, especially given a good effective rate.
Have you ever read your mortgage amortization schedule? I'm sure you went with a 10 year fixed but most people are drawn in by an "affordable" monthly payment for 25 or 30 years. That's a big commitment of future earnings.
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
Mint makes my head hurt sometimes. I've been trying to balance income to spending to savings and have not been able to get it to balance for 4 months. Turns out that it was identifying retirement plan contributions as income *facepalm*.

There is a reason I use Mint for non-investment accounts and Personal Capital (tools, not mgmt) for investments. Intuit just sucks at investment accounts, be it Quicken or Mint.
I wonder how JP Morgan kept track of his money?
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
The average rate paid on a new contract is 3.68% which translates into 40% of your total payments servicing your debt on a 30 year note. The payments are in the neighborhood $1,200 per 100,000 which seems cheap leading them to think they can buy more house than they should.

Of course, on the web, the rates monkies pay are far lower than the average joe because internet...
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,500
7,843
I wonder how JP Morgan kept track of his money?
Modern correlate: http://www.theonion.com/article/billionaire-reading-name-panama-papers-totally-for-52703

Have you ever read your mortgage amortization schedule? I'm sure you went with a 10 year fixed but most people are drawn in by an "affordable" monthly payment for 25 or 30 years. That's a big commitment of future earnings.
Oh, I'm well aware of it. I went for a 30 year fixed, actually, even knowing that only 31% of these early payments actually go to principal (excluding the TI part of PITI in this). I wanted month to month flexibility and by virtue of having a high marginal rate, for better or worse, my effective rate on the mortgage is 2.6%. I'm ok with that, even knowing how amortization works.
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
We get significantly more rain here, at least in volume. It just tends to arrive in apocalyptic rates vs 8 months of pissy drizzle.
MIld temps and year round trail riding in the Olympics are your reward, riding in the early morning drizzly fog as the sun breaks was pretty fucking awesome in the Capital Forest.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,580
20,393
Sleazattle
MIld temps and year round trail riding in the Olympics are your reward, riding in the early morning drizzly fog as the sun breaks was pretty fucking awesome in the Capital Forest.
I commuted via bike there for two winters. Generally just wore a water resistant jacket and jeans. Had to breakout the rain pants only a handful of times. Did defer to the bus during the rare days when it clearly was going to properly rain all day, maybe a couple of times a month?
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
I commuted via bike there for two winters. Generally just wore a water resistant jacket and jeans. Had to breakout the rain pants only a handful of times. Did defer to the bus during the rare days when it clearly was going to properly rain all day, maybe a couple of times a month?
Where I lived on the coast was much more rainy than where I lived inland. I'm a huge fan of the the Olympic National Rain Forest, if you have chance before going to work take a hike up the Quinault or Ho river valley's. Once you are in 6 or so miles you have the whole place to yourself and the elk do not spook until 50 feet. When I was training for adventure races our crew would run the Colonel Bob trail weekly - I'll find a link, you could do it in a day trip.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/olympic/recarea/?recid=47703

If I remember right snowy above 2500 feet through mid March, can easily be hiked as late as October with areas of snow.
 
Last edited:

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,580
20,393
Sleazattle
Where I lived on the coast was much more rainy than where I lived inland. I'm a huge fan of the the Olympic National Rain Forest, if you have chance before going to work take a hike up the Quinault or Ho river valley's. Once you are in 10 or so miles you have the whole place to yourself and the elk do not spook until 50 feet. When I was training for adventure races our crew would run the Colonel Bob trail weekly - I'll find a link, you could do it in a day trip.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/olympic/recarea/?recid=47703

If I remember right snowy above 2500 feet through mid March, can easily be hiked as late as October with areas of snow.

I did the rain forest many many moons ago. It was hot and dry that day. :)

Have also spent a bunch of time out on the coast, Shi Shi etc.
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
30? I thought they were offering 40 years now?

And aren't they doing 10 year mortgages on cars, now? :D
Christ, I wouln't work for a company that long... I read somewhere that the average American spends the equivalent of 5 years salary financing things they don't need. While looking at Jenson for Yeti 6C I was floored to discover that they offer financing... on bicycles!
 

dan-o

Turbo Monkey
Jun 30, 2004
6,499
2,805
A shop I worked at offered financing on bikes back in the early 90's.
It was originally for 'expensive' shit like treadmills but I was selling financing on rollerblades and shitty closeout bikes in no time.
People are fucking idiots.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,500
7,843
If it's at 0% then sign me up! I financed that goofy 3-wheeled scooter thing for 6 months at 0%. For free money towards something one would have bought anyway, why not?