Debt Dumpers 2020

[Shelly F - Ohio]

$295 is the ONLY costs? Last time we refinanced, it was that much just for the appraisal. We are currently at 3%. Another thing to consider about refinancing is that it starts the clock back to the beginning. We did that 3 times. The first time was great, going from 30 years to 15 years. The 2nd time was taking out some equity to pay off debt. (dumb idea!) Then the 3rd time was when the rate dropped. We'll still have it paid off before the original 30 year mark but we made a lot of stupid mistakes and now we can only try to make up for them. Unless I can get a great rate for 5 years, I dread starting all over again.

Yep we refied with them 3 yrs old because the offered $295 and at that time the also gave you a $100 home depot gift card. They don't off the gift card offer now. even though it starts the clock back to the beginning it lowers you monthly payment so if you can swing it you can make principle payments. We had $35k left to pay so we refied had a payment of $172 but set up a autopayment with a few extra hundred a month and paid it off in less than 3 yrs. They offer 10 yr, 15 yr and 30 yr loans with refi fee of $295.

 

[jen7233]

Oh and speaking of hiding gross things from family members, ds20 recently confessed that all the times he said he never wanted to return to the Polynesian again was because he found a bug in his bed during our 2011 stay. He was 11 at the time. His was the convertible sofa bed. He said he never mentioned it because he knew it would 'ruin' the trip for me.
Thanks Lovey, yes it would have!

We've been to WDW many times and that was the only room bug incident I've known of and I know Disney is good at keeping rooms clean. Sometimes things just happen and a bug gets in. I'm not bashing Disney for it and certainly I'll return again some day. Some day.

For me, spiders and wasps, I'm not dealing. Mainly wasps, that's like my kryptonite. I've checked out of lodgings on two occasions before over the aforementioned critters. Huge scary looking spider I discovered on top of my stuff in my gym duffel bag I left open at Fort Benning Uchee Creek cabins one summer years ago, went to get something out of my bag later in the day, and there he was on top of my stuff. Either Georgia has some big spiders or someone lost a pet! Out of there. Then I've had a wasp nest outside on the balcony right next to the sliding glass door at Shades of Green on a visit. Called front desk, moved rooms. At home I'm sure it's comedy if a neighbor has ever witnessed me tackle the few wasp nests issues that crop up from time to time. Edit: OK, just one complete lodging exit. I will say minus that one issue on the resort in the WDW area, I love it there and typically have a great experience, and resort handled room moving great.

 

[DisneyHardin]

Anyone who is thinking about it, now is a good time to refinance your home. Think about the savings you will be putting back into your pocket. I know that Third Federal Savings has an offer or refinancing for just $295.00 and really great rates. Even if all you are doing is getting your rate 1/2 a percent lower you are adding money back into your pocket for the cost of $295.

We are just about ready to close on our refinance. I did have to pay $395 for ours. We had 19 years left on a 30 year mortgage and had a $6000 HELOC that we still owed on. Our original mortgage was 4.6% and our refinance is 2.75%. Our new mortgage is a 15 year and we rolled that HELOC into it to pay it off. Our payment is going up $40 is all.

 

[Nettlelondon]

We remortgaged many years ago on to a fixed rate which was fixed for 5 years and really competitive at the time. At the end of the fixed period it dropped to a tracker of UK base rate plus 1.2% which, when we took out the plan, would have been a huge increase so we planned to refinance at that time. In the last year 2 years of the fixed period the interest rate started dropping. By the time we got to the end of the fixed period the interest rate on our mortgage was about 2.5% and lower than anything else we could get at the time.

We maintained our payments at the highest level as we were used to that and had no problem paying it and so have steadily watched our balance come down way ahead of schedule. We did remortgage when we bought a second property as a holiday home but that was more about balancing assets and liabilities across investments. And the interest rate was so low it made a lot of sense.

We could pay more off but to do that I would need to take more money from my husbands business and because of the slightly odd way that tax is paid on different types of income in the UK we would go from paying 7.5% tax to 32.5% on the extra that we would need to take. The interest saving is not worth it for the tax bill! We only have about 5 years left anyway now.

I was going through some documents yesterday and found paperwork for our first mortgage that was at 15% - I have no idea how we managed at the time.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Jealous of everyone refinancing... the rates are so great right now but we only have 11% equity and are paying PMI, so I don't think refinancing would help us since we don't have enough cash to make up the difference to get PMI off.

 

[barkley]

I was going through some documents yesterday and found paperwork for our first mortgage that was at 15% - I have no idea how we managed at the time.

i feel it. our first home loan back in '91 was something like 11.5% and we had pmi on top of that. we were overjoyed a few years into it when we were able to refi into the single digits and drop the pmi.

 

[pblack]

Jealous of everyone refinancing... the rates are so great right now but we only have 11% equity and are paying PMI, so I don't think refinancing would help us since we don't have enough cash to make up the difference to get PMI off.

We didn't have a whole lot of equity when we did our refi, probably about the same as you. We were paying PMI before and we still are, but our PMI amount went down by about 50 bucks. As long as you're not pulling money out, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to refinance to a lower rate.

 

[stitchsnk]

Jealous of everyone refinancing... the rates are so great right now but we only have 11% equity and are paying PMI, so I don't think refinancing would help us since we don't have enough cash to make up the difference to get PMI off.

We are in the same boat. I just looked and we own 11% with 5 more years of PMI. We are only 3 years in on a 30 year at 3.9%.

 

[bellylaugh]

Jealous of everyone refinancing... the rates are so great right now but we only have 11% equity and are paying PMI, so I don't think refinancing would help us since we don't have enough cash to make up the difference to get PMI off.

We are one year into our 30 year mortgage (I think we have about 14% equity so are paying PMI too). It doesn’t look like we can refinance right now in PA due to Covid closures but I’m keeping my eye on the rates...

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I was going through some documents yesterday and found paperwork for our first mortgage that was at 15% - I have no idea how we managed at the time.

Taxes were probably lower then. We've been in our home for 23 years. Our annual property taxes have tripled since we bought it. NJ has the highest taxes in the US. At least our schools are good but now that our kids are older, that's a lesser concern. It will help us some day when it's time to sell. In our area, having good public school raises property values tremendously.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We are one year into our 30 year mortgage (I think we have about 14% equity so are paying PMI too). It doesn’t look like we can refinance right now in PA due to Covid closures but I’m keeping my eye on the rates...

We had PMI when we first started too. Once you have enough equity, when you refi you won't have to pay it anymore and can handle a higher principal, usually. For us, just dropping the PMI made the refi from 30 to 15 yrs a lot less scary.

FWIW, equity is not just how much you've paid down your mortgage but the ratio between what you owe vs. current value. If house prices climb, and you can have it appraise for much higher than you paid, that is instant equity. We bought in Dec '96 and home values kept climbing. I think we only paid PMI for a couple years but maybe we just lucked out. I kept looking at real estate advertising brochures that were free at my train station, just to have something to read on the train. I would look for our same model in our development and see what they're asking. On Sundays we'd go to open houses and check out our model to see what improvements were done, if any. At first I thought the higher asking price might be for a new kitchen/baths or an addition or something like that. Sometimes not much was done and still asking way higher than we paid. I think they have since passed a law (maybe not nationwide) that you can't just petition to your mortgage company to have PMI dropped like we did. The only way out of it now is to refi. I may be wrong on that.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Check this out.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

Yes, that shows that everything was good right up until the s()t hit the fan.

 

[RamblingMad]

Yes, that shows that everything was good right up until the s()t hit the fan.

We’ll get through this. May should be a more reliable indicator given that no stimulus was paid out this month. But the additional $600 a week in unemployment should have a positive effect this month.

 

[barkley]

We’ll get through this. May should be a more reliable indicator given that no stimulus was paid out this month. But the additional $600 a week in unemployment should have a positive effect this month.

for those that get it-there's been so much fraud and stolen identities here that there'a a stop on all benefits being paid out for the time being. may be offset by those that still haven't gotten their stimulus if THAT arrives.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

we originally did a 30 year on our current home but when rates dropped several years ago we went to a 15. rates dropped significantly a 2nd time to justify another re-fi that save a couple hundred a month but we chose to continue paying the same mortgage payment each month and as a result of doing that and throwing every odd extra money we had (grocery budget spent less on one month-threw it at mortgage, got a promotional deal with satellite provider-threw the difference in what we had been paying at the mortgage...) so while the date of the mortgage reset we manage to pay it in full in about 8 years from the original purchase date (all those dibs and dabs of extra dollars added up).

I used the amortization calculator on our mortgage bank's website. If I put our monthly snowball toward it like you're describing above, we could pay it down in 2.5 years instead of 8. That is so tempting but would really mean no vacay and very little spending all that time.
Right now I have other obligations with our snowball and desperately need new bedroom furniture which will now have to wait until spring with ds going to trade school. Dh's truck is a 2011 and still running great but must consider replacing it in the 3-5 year plan. Realistically, if employment stays steady, in 3 years we could start attacking the mortgage and kick it to the curb quickly.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Anyone who is thinking about it, now is a good time to refinance your home. Think about the savings you will be putting back into your pocket. I know that Third Federal Savings has an offer or refinancing for just $295.00 and really great rates. Even if all you are doing is getting your rate 1/2 a percent lower you are adding money back into your pocket for the cost of $295.

I just looked into this. The $295/low cost mortgages are all higher rate than we're paying, currently @ 3.0%, and would extend our payments from 8 years to 10. The non-low cost mortgages have better rates but would require $3000-4000+ out of pocket to close and would still reset the clock to 10 years. Their rates are pretty impressive! I wish we had this in our early years. We thought less than 7% was super back then.

I think we're in the zone that is close enough to the finish line that unless rates drop to like 1.5%, doing a refi won't be beneficial for us.

 

[RamblingMad]

I used the amortization calculator on our mortgage bank's website. If I put our monthly snowball toward it like you're describing above, we could pay it down in 2.5 years instead of 8. That is so tempting but would really mean no vacay and very little spending all that time.
Right now I have other obligations with our snowball and desperately need new bedroom furniture which will now have to wait until spring with ds going to trade school. Dh's truck is a 2011 and still running great but must consider replacing it in the 3-5 year plan. Realistically, if employment stays steady, in 3 years we could start attacking the mortgage and kick it to the curb quickly.

What’s a snowball?

 

[DisneyMandC]

We didn't have a whole lot of equity when we did our refi, probably about the same as you. We were paying PMI before and we still are, but our PMI amount went down by about 50 bucks. As long as you're not pulling money out, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to refinance to a lower rate.

I think our problem would be is we tore a super crappy unpermitted addition off the side of our house. While it technically wasn't permitted, they still had it included in the square footage and written in as an additional bedroom when we purchased. Since it was unpermitted, we just tore it off and didn't tell anybody lol.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

What’s a snowball?

Google Dave Ramsey

 

[RamblingMad]

Google Dave Ramsey

Thanks.

Looks like I only have two debts: my vehicle and my mortgage, so I'll stick to overpaying on my mortgage for now.