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The Old Homestead Warm Cancun greetings to all! Over the last few months I have received comments and questions regarding my ridiculously high 5.875% mortgage rate. Currently, I owe $59,568 on the mortgage; I also owe around $21,500 on our HELOC (home equity line of credit). Many people recommended that I refinance the balance to a lower rate; others suggested that I pay off the mortgage by making additional payments to the principal. These are great suggestions, but I have my own plan to slay the beast. Here is a brief look at my financial ball and chain in financial calculator format: PV = $59,568 (originally borrowed $125,000 on $157,000 home) I = 5.875% PMT = $811 (including additional principal payment) N = 7.5 years / 90 months (originally a 30 year loan) FV = $0 (that's the goal of every homeowner, right?) Refinancing I have looked into refinancing my mortgage, but I have not been impressed with the options. Sure, I could get a lower rate, BUT I do not w...

Mexico or Bust! Greetings from Cancun, Mexico to all my loyal Millionaire Educator readers (Mom and Honest Abe)!  Two weeks ago I bought one-way airline tickets from AirTran for the Atlanta to Cancun flight.  Two days later my wife, son and I landed in Cancun and began our family adventure.   We decided to come to Mexico for two main reasons.  First, my wife and I both agreed that an extended family adventure would benefit all of us.  We could all work on our Spanish, see lots of interesting sites, hit the beaches, and escape the suddenly cold Georgia winter.  Second, we also wanted to see what it would be like to live in Cancun as a local, not a tourist.       Let's face it, most U.S. news pertaining to Mexico is very negative.   Friends and relatives advised us not to go, and my wife and I had our own reservations.  We agreed that if we didn't like it, we would return home after two weeks.  So far, we have really enjoyed our trip, and we plan on staying for two full months. A...

Credit Card Debt...Be Gone! This post will be brief...I just wanted to share some good news.  This week we paid off the last $500 balance on our Visa credit card.  We had carried a balance on a number of 0% rollover cards since 2009.  At its peak, the balance was $10,000.  By rolling our credit card debt to 0% rollover cards, we were able to avoid most credit card expenses:  interest and late payment fees.  Every month we automatically sent in payments using our bank's Bill Pay service.  However, owing anything to a credit card company is NOT good; thinking and worrying about credit card debt definitely affects your psyche. In the future, we plan on using our credit cards sparingly.  That shouldn't be so hard since we make most of our purchases these days with our debit cards.  We prefer debit cards because they seem to moderate our spending and encourage us to be thrifty.  (Watching our checking account balance steadily diminish over the course of the month seems to keep our s...

Happy New Year to all; may 2014 be your year!  Okay, it’s time to see how we did with our 2013 goals .  Let me start by saying my wife and I only worked five months each this year, so we came up short on most of our financial goals.  Nonetheless, 2013 was still a great year for us. Savings Goals Our 2013 savings goal was to save $102,050 in our various retirement and education accounts:  IRA, 403b, 457, HSA, Coverdell ESA, and 529 plans.   Unfortunately, we did not hit our goal; we actually came up $23,328 short!  However, we still managed to save $78,722 in our five months of work. Result:   We missed our goal, but we're not ready to call saving over $78,000 a failure.       2013 Savings Results Accounts Self Wife Total 457  $15,512   $17,500   $33,012  403b $11,200 $13,460  $24,660  IRAs $6,500 $5,500 $12,000 Health Savings $6,450 $6,450 Total Retirement  and Health Savings $76,122  Educational Savings  Son Others Total Coverdell ESA $2,000 $0 $2,000 529 Plan $300 $300 $600 Total...

  Swayback #1 December 26th, 2013 marked the 10-year anniversary of a very special relationship.  The old girl in question has been so good to me and my family.  She's reliable, hard-working, and still a little pretty in spite of her advanced age.  Sure, she often has a "rode-hard-and-put-up-wet" look to her, but I don't mind.  Even though at times she feels unsteady and rickety, she still delivers one heck of a ride.  While I don't really "love" this aging wench, she does have a special place in my heart. Yeah, my 2002 Mitsubishi Galant has been very good to me!  Ten years ago we paid $10,500 for this "sweet" ride.  Since then, I have replaced the tires thrice, the timing belt twice, and the air condition once.  (I might have changed the tires four times, but I wanted to use the word "thrice.")  When I bought her, she had 46,000 miles on her; today she has over 257,000 miles!  Here she is:           The Chick Magnet Earlier this year...

Coming to a Tent Near You In mid-October we attended our niece's wedding in Tifton, Georgia.   We all enjoyed ourselves at the wedding, and since we're not working these days, we decided to spend a few days catching up with friends and relatives.  My wife and I really enjoyed the fact that we didn't have to hurry home to plan for a busy school week.  Instead, we were able to have some fun on our own schedule.  To build on that fun we decided to go for a camping trip to Jekyll Island, Georgia.  Not working* sure has its advantages!   Our Home for 4 Days   Now, I won't lie...I don't know much about camping, so I wasn't sure how the trip would go.  My wife has more camping experience than me, so I followed her lead as we set up camp.  All in all, there was nothing to it:  the tent went up in five minutes and the chairs were unfolded in five seconds.  We then graced our tent's entrance with a car floor mat and boom...home sweet home!   All throughout the night w...

It's almost 2014, so it's time to start planning for next year's taxes.  There are a few tax changes for 2014 that will affect our " free money ."  Here they are:   The  Standard Deduction  (married filing jointly)  will rise from $12,200 to  $12,400   The  Personal Exemption  will increase from $3,900 to  $3,950   The  10% Tax Bracket   will increase from $17,850 to  $18,150      The  Health Savings Account  maximum for a family will increase from $6,450 to  $6,550     *Use this   source  to create  YOUR  tax plan.   Here is our 2014 tax plan.  As you can see, the first $34,250 of income should be tax-free thanks to our standard deduction, 3 personal exemptions and 1 child tax credit.  We then add in the remaining 10% tax bracket ($18,150 - $10,000 = $8,150) since our goal is to limit our taxable income to the 10% bracket.   Ideally, our AGI for 2014 will be $42,400 since it will result in a federal income tax of $815 ($8,150 * 10%).  Finally, we ...