There is a sheet of printer paper on our refrigerator with seven boxes drawn on it in black marker, one for each month from September through March. The first box is colored in with a red pen. Greg did that one, and he pressed hard enough to go through the paper.
That's the countdown. If nothing goes wrong, the house is ours in March 2026.
How we got here
We bought our split-level in Franklin in May 1999 for $112,000. In 2012 we refinanced to a 15-year loan at 3.5%, which brought the principal and interest payment to $893 a month and set the finish line for 2027. For a long time that was fine. We paid it on the first, I wrote it in the green notebook, and nobody thought about it again.
This spring, when Greg and I sat down with our retirement numbers, the mortgage stood out. In April the balance was $24,180. On the regular schedule it would have hung around until the summer of 2027. And our whole plan for me leaving the school in June depended on that $893 going away as soon as we could manage it.
So starting in May we added $800 a month on top of the regular payment, marked "principal only." In June we took $4,000 out of savings and sent it in one lump. The $612 from our garage sale in April went in too, because it seemed right that the kids' old bikes and Josh's drum set help pay for the house they grew up in.
After the September payment, the balance is $10,280. At $1,693 a month, five more regular months gets us to February, and in March a regular payment plus a little over a thousand dollars finishes it.
What we gave up
I want to be honest about this part, because the internet loves a payoff story and doesn't always mention the cost.
The interest we're saving is small. Paying it off about fifteen months early saves us something like $500 in interest. Nobody pays off a 3.5% mortgage early to save on interest. If that were the goal, the math would say leave the loan alone and put the money somewhere it could earn more over time. Greg's 401(k) is the obvious example. We held off on raising his contribution this year so that the extra could go to the house instead, and that was a real trade.
We also gave up some cushion. In July the water heater quit, and the $1,650 to replace it came out of a savings account that was $4,000 lighter than it would have been. That week I second-guessed the whole plan. It's one thing to be fine with a smaller emergency fund in theory. It's another to watch a plumber carry a rusted tank up the basement steps while you do arithmetic in your head.
And we gave up some flexibility. Money in a house is hard to get back out. If something big had happened, we couldn't have called the mortgage company and asked for the extra back.
Why we did it anyway
Three reasons, in the order they matter to us.
First, monthly cash flow. Once Greg retires, every dollar we need each month has to come from somewhere: his 401(k), eventually Social Security, eventually my pension. A house with no payment makes every one of those sources stretch further. Getting rid of $893 a month is the biggest single change we can make to what we'll need.
Second, timing. I left work in June. I started part-time bookkeeping this month, about 12 hours a week at $21 an hour. Between that and Greg's paycheck we can carry the extra payment now without touching anything else. Next year, who knows. It felt smart to push while we can.
Third, and Greg rolls his eyes at this one, peace of mind. I grew up in a house where my parents worried about the mortgage at the kitchen table. I'd like to sit at my kitchen table and not have that conversation at all.
None of that is advice. A lot of sensible people would make the other choice, especially with a low rate, and they'd have good reasons. If you're weighing it, talk to someone who does this for a living and look at your whole picture, not just the loan.
The plan for the boxes
Six boxes left. The $800 extra comes out automatically the day after Greg's first paycheck each month, so we don't have to decide again every time. If anything breaks between now and March, we'll pause the extra rather than drain savings further. That's the rule we wrote on the back of the countdown sheet.
Biscuit, for the record, has knocked the countdown off the refrigerator twice. Greg says he's a skeptic.
