Refinance

Hurrah - we're all done except the final signing, and that should happen tomorrow!

4.875% on a 30 year fixed means that our mortgage payment falls and our debt snowball goes even faster. We'll take the difference between what we paid before and the new mortgage payment and apply it to debt, moving up the date when we can say "We're debt free!"

I really want to be debt free. Really, really. And this will make it easier.

If anybody wants a referral to a mortgage guy, I'll pass along the number. We're pleased with the rate and the fees, and the process has been relatively painless (okay, we did have to put together 31 pages to fax, but that's just how it goes.....nobody is taking any chances and we had to prove just about everything we said with a couple years of W2s, insurance papers, checking account statements, and the like). It lowers our payment by $200 - hurrah!

And due to some weird thing, we skip a mortgage payment as a result of the refi, and that money will get applied to our porch, which is in dire need of replacement. I wish we could do it for cosmetic purposes, but we just need it to be done so that it's not rotten. River rock columns will happen some other time, but right now we just need it to be safe. (Hopefully it will be prettier, too. The porch is the face of the house and it could use a little facelift.)