She's been acting weird for the past 6 months. Almost midlife crisis type thoughts and interests. I brushed it off as a phase. Figured it would pass. Well today she asked me to take her to lunch. As we finished up, the eating slowed and the conversation quickened, she said, "Hon, we need to talk". My reflex is to wonder what I screwed up. She had a serious look on her face; The look I get when she's worried about how I'll react to the news.

She squares up and just lets it out. "You know how we had a 15 yr mortgage?"
Uh,....had?
"yeah, well we made our last payment last week. The house is paid off"
Jaw drops.

When we bought this house, we were still smarting from a hard learned financial lesson many years before. We determined then that regardless of first cause, we were vulnerable because we were in debt. Between the house, three new cars, toys and a cavalier 'no fate but what I make' attitude, we owed on nearly everything we owned. When my company was defrauded and collapsed, I realized that in spite of how much I'd paid so far, I owned nothing. We suffered great loss and anguish as a result. Our resolve was to stay as far out of debt as we could from then on.

When we bought this house, the economy was unstable. Obama was bumbling around damaging everything he touched and we were unsure what the future held. So we under-bought for our cash flow. All of our vehicles are paid for and we had long since retired our consumer debt. This house would be our only obligation. We decided to go with a 15yr mortgage. Mrs DF handled the house payment while I handled everything else. We each paid the bills out of a common account that we both monitored. What I didn't know is that she was dumping most of our surplus cash into paying down the mortgage. She paid the house off in 6.5 years.

Blink, blink. I didn't know what to think. I still don't. This changes everything.

Marry her. Again!

Nice, congrats.

Sooo....you're not getting divorced?


Seriously, congratulations to you both!!!

And she's not pregnant or sick...TRIPLE BONUS!

Take that woman to the primo vacation spot of her choice! You guys earned it.

quote:

Originally posted by KMitch200:
And she's not pregnant or sick...TRIPLE BONUS!

Take that woman to the primo vacation spot of her choice! You guys earned it.

Right? That explains why she has been looking at life changes. She dragged me to an RV store this morning. As far as I've been concerned, that was not even on the radar. She's been talking about exploring and seeing things. I've been keeping my nose to the grind stone. Now I understand.

For the record, I'm not an RV kind of guy. Honey, break out the gerbils and the rubber sheets!

Good for both of you. You married well. That she did that is a sign of many good things.

Ok, had to do this. I have never had the missus give me this big of a surprise, but I know how paying off mortgage feels. Way back in the day I had a 30yr on my house in ME which I changed over to a 15yr and completely forgot about until Navy Fed told me I had it paid off.

Congratulations. She is a keeper.

does she have a sister?

6.5 years .. damn!

I was just thinking last week about how nice it would be to pay our house off in 15 years. We are only 1.5 years into a 30 year note.

I’d have to throw an additional $975 or so at it each month to accomplish it. But how nice would that be?!?

Congrats.

I'll tell you what, the best thing I ever did was convert from a 30 to a 15. It upped my payment about $150. I ended up renting it and I added about $200 over the rent I charged. I think I finished in 9.5 or 10 instead of 15.

So....what gun is she buying you?

Damn you had me worrying I just knew it was going to be she was sick or divorce.

I'm so happy for ya'll

That is amazingly grand news, Brother! Y'all are just damn awesome people! I havent seen you in forever and figured youre keeping busy, but now when i dont see you ill just imagine youre stuck in an RV near some national Park!

That was some serious cash flow dump. Congratulations!

Awesome! I really thought this was going to be about another little DF in the works. Which would have been great as well.

She wants a RV? Now you can get her the damn RV. Congrats to the both of you.

Back when we had a mortgage, my wife did the exact same thing. She doubled up payments when she could and got that thing paid off in less than eight years. I still admire her for that.

This thread inspired me to take a look at our mortgage. Remaining principle: $2,160.34. Scheduled payments are $420.03 / month (what do they do with the three cents?), so if I don't pay anything extra, we'll have a mortgage burning party late spring or early summer.

Not really much incentive to make significant extra payments at this time; we're at the point where there is minimal interest in each payment, mostly principal. We can use the extra cash flow for the new roof (thank you, hurricane Irma! ).

Congrats! You picked the right woman. Should take her to lunch more often.

PS: the mortgage news is good too.

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