I was reminded by my son: As of today, we have lived in our new house for 5 years. So, it’s time for a mortgage update – with handy-dandy chart!
When my wife and I financed the purchase of our new home five years ago, our goal was to pay it off in less than ten years. We have a fixed, conventional, fifteen-year mortgage.
I use a simple pie-chart to track our progress. Having a visualization keeps us motivated and excited about the progress we are making.
We purchased our home in February of 2010. Hopefully, we’ll pay it off in less than 10 years – which is our stretch goal – but as of right now, we have shaved 7 months off of the length of the loan. Our progress was slowed, just a bit, when I changed jobs, but we are back – on-track – making principal-only payments on a regular basis.
Here’s a chart with details for our current progress –
The percentages above represent the amount of our mortgage we have paid – 28.28% – and the amount we still owe – 71.72%.
Click here to check out our method for reducing our debt and paying off our mortgage.
Each month, we make our scheduled mortgage payment, plus an additional principal-only payment. (Some months, we make more than one principal-only payment.)
Keep in mind, this chart doesn’t represent our equity – it represents that amount we owe on our mortgage.
Here’s more on how we found the perfect house for our family and decided how much to pay for our new home.
We have reduced the length of our 15-year mortgage by 7 months. Each month, the amount of money going towards principal increases, and the amount for interest decreases. Things should really begin to progress, as we ramp up our efforts in 2015. Blessings.