Tag: mortgage

We Paid Off the House!

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I’ve checked my phone about one million times this past week.

We closed on our cabin on Friday afternoon. There was one form left to be signed by the buyer (who wasn’t there, since the sale was a 1031 exchange), so our funds would likely be delivered the next week.

On Monday morning I started checking again. It was Columbus Day. Gah. Bank holiday. Oh well, I would resume my checking tomorrow.

Tuesday morning. Started checking. And checking. I really wanted to pay our house off today! Finally, the funds were delivered at 3 pm. Too late to send a wire to our mortgage company.

Wednesday morning. After 9 am, I promptly filled out the wire form to pay off our mortgage. My husband said I could do the honors, since he knew how important to me it was. I sent it in, super excited about being mortgage free again!

Then I switched to checking our mortgage account to see when it would post. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Finally, yesterday morning our loan was listed as inactive. We are mortgage free!

If you don’t know our story, we began our journey towards debt freedom nearly five years ago. We were living just like everyone else seemed to be… mortgage, car payments, credit cards, camper payment, etc. We had financed our life!

One day God spoke to me through His Word about this. Debt was a burden. The borrower was slave to the lender. And just like pretty much everything else, the way society does things is not exactly the right way to do things, to put it lightly.

He convicted me. I knew we needed to make a change.

Related: Sacrifice During Our Debt Free Journey

I bought The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, and seriously devoured it. And boy, did I change. I cut out everything I could. We moved to a new state for a higher paying job. We downsized twice. I learned about simple living, and embraced it wholeheartedly. I was pretty hardcore. Just about every day, I watched Dave Ramsey’s show on YouTube. If you are looking to get out of debt, I totally recommend it. It is free, and very inspiring. (On a side note, we don’t follow all of Dave Ramsey’s teachings, but his debt payoff method helped us immensely. I totally recommend it!)

Our debt continued to dwindle, and we were left with only our mortgage. Then after a lot of hard work and God’s favor, we paid off the cabin that was a bit too small for our family of eleven in late 2019. It felt amazing! After paying it off, we decided to stay there indefinitely because it felt so good. Debt freedom was wonderful!

About five months later, we changed our minds. The pandemic hit, and we felt led to move somewhere more rural so we could put more of our homestead plans into action. But this would mean acquiring another mortgage. Yuck. We started looking for an inexpensive property that met our needs, and we landed on this fixer upper.

Our real estate agent said there was nothing else on the market with five acres and 2200 square feet at this price. He was right. We went for it, and started to fix it up little by little. While I’ve been grateful to purchase this home, I haven’t always loved it. After being 100% debt free, the mortgage felt stifling. Even though we had locked in a low rate, over $600 per month was going towards interest. $600! We were just throwing that money away.

I also didn’t feel like we truly owned it. Because we didn’t. The bank did.

But now, with a lot of God’s favor and grace, we are mortgage free again. Everything feels different. Sitting inside the home feels different. The grass feels different. The Lord (YHWH) is so good.

He is the God who multiplies. I never would have guessed that paying off our starter home cabin would lead to owning a home on five acres plus being able to look for even more land for our family. Only God!

And it’s not like we are special. He would do the same for you. Yes, everybody’s needs are different, and our family sizes are different. A 2200 square foot home on a basement might be a better fit for a family of 11 then a family of 3 in God’s eyes. I don’t know. But I do know that if you surrender your life to Him, He intends to bless you. Most importantly, with spiritual blessings. But He also will take care of you, and make sure your physical needs are met.

Mortgage freedom is just another layer of peace the Lord (YHWH) has given me. One less worry. Praise Him!

I’m so excited, and am looking forward to loving on this home a little bit more than I used to. We still have a lot of work to do, and I am ready!

Unless Adonai builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless Adonai watches over the city, the watchman stands guard in vain. In vain you rise up early and stay up late, eating the bread of toil— for He provides for His beloved ones even in their sleep.


Psalms 127:1‭-‬2 TLV

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So…It Looks Like We are Buying A House

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Guys…it looks like the deal is almost done, and we will be closing on our new home this week! It is totally bittersweet because we will once again have a mortgage. At the same time, we will also have five acres again, and my mini farm dreams will hopefully come true!

Related: Life During Quarantine

We’ve been loosely following the Dave Ramsey plan for three and a half years now. The past three and a half years have turned my world upside down, in a good way. This will be our third move during this time frame. The first time, we moved to South Carolina due to my husband’s new job. We then moved to our current sweet little cabin, since I wanted to be closer to “home” while pregnant. Now, with a push from Covid-19, we decided to move once more to a place where we can (hopefully) truly homestead.

“Bloom where your planted” has been my motto over the past few years. Sometimes it has been downright hard, but the Lord has been my strength when I am weak. It has been difficult to throw everything we could at our mortgages. It also hasn’t been easy to live in our small cabin as a family of eleven. This cabin is so very lovely though, and Lord willing, we will be able to hold onto it as a vacation rental. This was our original plan when we purchased it. It is so warm and inviting, and I just love being here. Unfortunately, our lot just won’t accommodate the large gardens and farm animals I feel are a priority since the pandemic began.

Our new fixer upper needs some work. We have chosen to keep our budget low, so if we did sell our paid for cabin, we could pay off our new home. This gives me a sense of security, and I’m so grateful for that. We are going to continue to be very frugal…frugality has become a way of life for me. Living simply has brought me so much joy, and shown me how focusing on the important things in life is well…what’s important.

These Mary & Martha products have brought joy to my heart during this uncertain time.

We have moved from the Atlanta metro area to south-central South Carolina, and are now in the picturesque north Georgia area. Our cabin is in a vacation town, and while we love it, our new place is a bit more rural. For our family, that is just what we are looking for.

The Lord has been faithful, and once we complete some repairs and set up homesteading basics, we will be attacking that mortgage! We’ve done this before, and can do it again. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. If you haven’t already, I really encourage you to check out Dave Ramsey’s program. Reading The Total Money Makeover and watching his YouTube channel has done wonders for our finances. I used to think there was no hope for us financially, but by God’s grace, there was!

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