The bull by the horns
One of the real emotional issues I’ve had to battle with the last few days is the sense of not having control of my destiny and that has been manifest in disparate observations that I’ve cobbled together. One example of which is I bought this house with two incomes and set out a remodel that was within budget reach, but in the blink of an eye, I became one income and the remodel cost tripled due to a post-Katrina premium. Then once in the house I ran into a familiar friend, the addition was not attached to the house the way an appraisal could take it into account so the appraisals I was getting were way too low for what was already equity in the house. So I had to take out a first mortgage and a line of credit to refinance. At the same time as all of that was happening I hit a headwind called the economy and year upon year brought considerably less input for the same highly escalated output. Basically I was screwed.
I chose to look at it this way, every day I spent in the LaLa was a day I enjoyed and enjoy it I would and will and do. But still the worries of more headwind ahead and uncertainty have hovered like a bad penny in my mindspace, crowding out my joie de vivre at times, like recently. So when I began to see tellltale signs that the economy was slowing down, I started getting nervous again. And when my friends were all taking advantage of the ridiculously low mortgage rates and refinancing at 3.75% and changing from a 30 year fixed to a 15 year on their mortgages and I couldn’t participate because it would jack up my mortgage by $600 a month and it would be neigh impossible to get a favorable appraisal in this new regulatory climate, I was overwrought with where I found myself at this juncture.
Then my brother showed up with some brotherly advice from his mortgage broker days – and so yesterday I added a small sum to my monthly payment and now my 30 year fixed has been reduced to a 25 year fixed. And in the next few years when the line of credit is gone, I’ll add a little more and bring it down to a 15 year fixed. So by the time I am 65 years old, my house will be paid off. That was all I wanted, a little comfort in knowing I could retire.
Alas, this undertaking gave me a feeling of empowerment and a doable plan. And I am a woman who likes a plan.