I live, write, and garden in the PNW with my husband of 27 years, disabled daughter, college-aged son, and my 84-year-old mother. We have paid off $250,000.00 worth of debt (if you include the interest) in the last fifteen years and as of 6/12/2020 are 100% DEBT FREE!!!!I ran the numbers tonight, and if I were to take out all but $1000 of the emergency fund we could come pretty close to having the BoA VISA paid off by the end of April. This would be on top of paying off the BoA Master Card tomorrow.
I think that we should do it. A part of me is very wary of having only $1000 in the EF. But...we'd have all the BoA cards paid off in full by the end of May then. Unless I scrimp really, really hard and then I might be able to do it by the first of May.
Then by the end of May we'd be able to save $2000 a month and I'd have the EF back again by the end of June. I like having an EF, but it almost seems silly at this point when it is only earning .8% and my credit card is at 11.4% Paying it all off means having our debt to income ratio fall beneath 45%, which is a magic number for some loans. Right now it's at 49%. Plus we'll also have made 2 payments on our car payment which will lower it even more.
If I do this it means come July we start saving for a house, and when we have enough, to get the really good loans, and we might get into a house before we know it.
Tomorrow we go out to the old house to pack up the very last of the stuff and do some cleaning. Then we can set up a time with the rug lady so she can spend the day steam cleaning the rugs. We might need to rent a small truck to get the last of the stuff moved, and things like the table saw. We'll leave the lawnmower there until the house sells so we can keep the lawn mowed.
I really want to put this thing on the market. DH and his father are going to put up the last wall in the bathroom that needed replacing on Wednesday and that's the last really big thing to do. We will sell it as is/where is. If you only sell as is there is room to negotiate for the buyer. If you sell as is/where is, it means that the sellers are not willing to put one more dime into it and you take it or leave it the way it is. We like as is/where is, because we won't get slapped with the buyers wanting us to put on a new roof or paint it or fix anything. We really mean we don't want to do anything more than we do.
I don't even care that much about how much it sells for so long as I end up with $20,000 over the remaining cost of the mortgage and any realtor fees. The last tax assessment valued it at $92,000 and I think our creditu union values it at $112,000, but we will put it on the market for $75,000 knowing that they can then get a bigger mortgage to do the repairs with if needed. And we'll even negotiate price. What we won't negotiate is us fixing things. We don't wanna.
Ran the Numbers
March 30th, 2012 at 08:21 am
March 30th, 2012 at 12:22 pm 1333110161
March 30th, 2012 at 03:27 pm 1333121229
Also, you sound like you have a solid sales plan for the house. Most sellers get caught up in "what they paid" for the house, etc. Pricing low and being open to negotiating will hopefully speed things along.
How exciting! To be making so much progress...
March 30th, 2012 at 03:39 pm 1333121969
I hear you on the don't want to fix things. My floors are far from perfect, but they are clean and not dated. But I don't have the upgraded laminate that is so popular either. We'll see what happens. It is priced to sell and a great deal without upgrades.
March 31st, 2012 at 01:51 am 1333158688
MM--Well, and we only paid $65,000 for it when we bought it back in 1998. Really, we want to pay off the less than $18K that is left and have enough to give us something for it. Mostly though, the cost of maintaining it and keeping stuff in storage is what I want to get rid of. It'll free up so much money.
CCF--Yeah I am leaning very heavily towards paying off BoA fast.