As of today my piece of "Rural Living" is all mine!

[EE_Bota]

FICO scores only go up when you stay in debt. I refuse to worship at the alter of the Great FICO. To the OP. Congrads on paying off your debt. Debt FREE is the only way to be.. You can now say FREEDOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I show up to the FICO church periodically because insurers use that score to help determine insurance rates. I use my credit cards to pay some bills, and then pay those cards off to try to help my score. Anymore, I mostly use the cards to pay my insurance.

 

[displacedPA]

Congrats on paying off your place the wife and i are working towards that as well. we are adding extra prinicple every month. We should have it paid off in five more years. It excites me every time I think about it.... granted we would like a place with more property and we are always looking. I still feel it is best to pay ones debt off as soon as possible.

 

[dave1949]

I show up to the FICO church periodically because insurers use that score to help determine insurance rates. I use my credit cards to pay some bills, and then pay those cards off to try to help my score. Anymore, I mostly use the cards to pay my insurance.

You reminded me of a project I have let slip. When I changed my home owner's insurance last April to a different insurer, I received a letter with the policy stating that I didn't get the best possible price due to my credit score. Grrr. Well, gee, what is the best price?

So, the credit scoring outfit they use, listed four items: number of non-closed accounts, insufficient information on bank revolving accounts, insufficient information on oil company accounts, length of time sales finance accounts have been established.

We have no debts, I have a $294 credit with the oil (propane) company from a guaranteed price pay-ahead plan that will take me forever to use up since I changed to solar electric, and I don't know for sure what the other things mean really. Anyways, like it or not, I should waste time correcting these things I suppose.

The last time I looked at my credit report, it had me living places I never have, so I have to assume some other info is blended with someone sharing my name, or whatever. This sucks. It's like you cannot escape these idiots. They get paid like the weatherman for being right or wrong.

 

[dmccarty]

Congratulations.

This is my jealous face --> :hissyfit:

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

Some day, we will have the place as our all ours.

Some of our land is ours all ours but the house is the banks and ours.

Course it is only ours as long as we pay property tax....

Later,
Dan

 

[CobyRupert]

The best "trick" I learned for paying off a mortage early was to print out the ammortization table. When you pay off the current month cross that payment off, if you then want to pay extra on the principle, make it an amount equal to next month's principle (or the sum of the next few month's principle). You can then cross off those month(s) (avoiding those month's interest). It's a good way to see how much interest you just saved and know how many month's you just jumped ahead. (Example: $150,000 at 30yr, 4% = $716.12 payment, $107,804 in total interest over 30 years. But send in an extra $216.84 the first month and you just save $499.28 in interest and shortened the schedule by 1 month.)

But you're still just renting from the government...

 

[kenmac]

I show up to the FICO church periodically because insurers use that score to help determine insurance rates. I use my credit cards to pay some bills, and then pay those cards off to try to help my score. Anymore, I mostly use the cards to pay my insurance.

I'm sure I pay a little more for insurance. It's a shame they use your FICO score to determind what you will pay for insurance. For people that use credit I understand. I use to do the same (years ago)... As far as using me using credit,,,,,,,I would rather not play with snakes ,because at some point,,they tend to bite. As the saying goes . You knew I was a snake when you took me in.

 

[MossRoad]

No kidding! We actually started a managed fund when he was born. It draws automatically as well as our life insurance.
I am going to keep "paying the mortgage" and build up the cash.
We are so fortunate the property taxes are low and the insurance reasonable.

We probably look crazy on paper but we have multiple savings accounts. One for taxes, one for charity, one for emergencies, one for our son for money people give him. I want to start another for the next car (we have two that are in good shape / paid for, but want enough cash when time comes for another down the road). Might not work for everyone but works for us to at the end of each month take everything we have left and divy it out into the savings accounts and start out at "zero". I get paid once a month so we do it on payday. Put what is left in checking into the different savings and start out at zero with that months check. It has worked for us so far!

That's no different than the old envelope system. Apparently it works for you! :thumbsup:


My wife and I paid off our first house in 5 years.
Paid off 20 acres 4 years later.
Put off building on 20 acres and had a baby instead.
Moved and paid off the 2nd house in 5 years.
Put off building on 20 acres and had another baby instead.
Economy tanked, but we were fine.
Now putting off building on 20 acres while kids go through high school and college.
Making the kids put some skin in the game for college... no free rides!
Maybe I can work for the kids and build a retirement home! :laughing:

But there is great satisfaction in knowing you can pay your taxes and eat on minimum wage jobs. Everything else is gravy.

 

[MossRoad]

The best "trick" I learned for paying off a mortage early was to print out the ammortization table. When you pay off the current month cross that payment off, if you then want to pay extra on the principle, make it an amount equal to next month's principle (or the sum of the next few month's principle). You can then cross off those month(s) (avoiding those month's interest). It's a good way to see how much interest you just saved and know how many month's you just jumped ahead. (Example: $150,000 at 30yr, 4% = $716.12 payment, $107,804 in total interest over 30 years. But send in an extra $216.84 the first month and you just save $499.28 in interest and shortened the schedule by 1 month.)

But you're still just renting from the government...

Back when we bought our first home, we had to borrow 18K and paid 3 points to get the interest rate down to 12.5%. I got the amortization table and saw 360 payments of $256.00.... that's $92,160 for an 18K loan!

First thing we did was make a double payment and wiped about 29 future payments off the end of the loan. Did that almost every month. Paid it off in 5 years instead of 30. Still ended up paying about $30k on an 18K loan, but have to look at it as not spending an additional $62K in the future.

 

[cdaigle430]

Hate to say it but no one and I mean no one owns their land. Stop paying your taxes on it and see what happens Owning is just a farse.

 

[EddieWalker]

Congratulations. Life just got easier for you and I'm sure you will sleep just a little better every night!!!!

Eddie