Buying a Dream Home with Cash : Dream or Reality

I haven’t even reached my short-term goal yet, but I am already thinking and planning for my Long-Term goals. My husband always side eye me when I am talking about anything that is more than 2 years out so when I told him I wanted to start saving for our dream home he decided I was going off the deep end. 

Our dream home won’t be bought or built for at least another 8 years. That is how long we have before my husband retires from the military. With us moving around so frequently it doesnt make sense for us to buy anything more than an investment property (which we are heavily considering by the way).

None the less I stunned him even more when I told him I wanted to save up to pay 100% in cash for it. I’ve since changed my mind about that for two reasons. For one it will be our Forever Home, therefore it wont be an inexpensive purchase. It wont be a starter home or even a midway home (at least that is what I am thinking right now). Second when I calculated out how much we would need to save per year to get to a fully paid home, it was definitely doable but we wouldnt have much money left over to put in a retirement account, or 529 for our children, or even something fun like a summer trip.

In theory, I would like to have saved $300,000 for a dream home. We would have began to save after our debt is completely paid off AND we have a full emergency fund of $10,000. This is to be done by April 2015. From that date I gave my self ten years

$300,000/ 120 months = $2,500 month 

What I didnt give myself was space to purchase a car when my husband’s goes koo-plop (and it is on it’s way), for a family vacay here and there, for another baby or two entering our family equation, or for those investment properties that I mentioned earlier. With that said I will lean toward saving to pay HALF on a home and anything greater than that I still consider to be awesome.

Before I can say for should I need to conquer these very important short term goals

1. Pay off all debt ( Student loan and car loan)
2. Build a $10,000 emergency fund
3. Start a Roth IRA

What are your long-term goals? Have you ever thought to paying Cash for a Home?

Image source http://alexarchitectureandenginnering.blogspot.com/2012/12/american-craftsman-style-homes-ideas.html

 

Summer Goals Update

This is a late June update on my Summer Goals. Many of my goals are still the same, but I have added an extra one below.

Go to the Movies – 

This I have not done.. and as the summer passes me by I am not as interested as I was on seeing the theatre movies as I am with catching up on movies that I have already missed.  As I was looking through Red Box last night, I realized that there were several movies that I have to view before summer is over.  After al,l this option would be cheaper and more fulfilling to my bank account.  Again don’t judge me because I am super late on viewing these movies but I am planning to rent The Help, Breaking Dawn, Django, Life of Pi, and several chick flicks that I have obviously missed. I do really wanna see After Earth in the theatres. We will see how that goes.

Read 8 books

Someone could have warned me that The Help was a really long book. It is at least 800 pages, well the e-book is. I am midway through the book with hopes to finish the book by this weekend so that I can rent the movie. It is back at Red Box for only a short time. I have also red the book.

Living Well in a Down Economy for Dummies

I’m in the process of reading Make Money with Condominiums and Townhomes, The Money Smart Family System, Real Estate Investing for Dummies, Be Centsable: How to Cut Your Household Budget in Half and others.

I plan to write an end of  summer book review. Clearly I’m well on my way to jumping past 8 books. Proud of my self.
Complete the whole New Testament

Okay, I have been a little slack on this one. I am embarrassed because if there is one book I should have progressed in, it is the Bible. I am close to finishing Acts though. I have gotten better about reading daily and also reading more than one chapter per day.  My short-term goal is to finish Acts by the end of this week, Romans by next week, and 1st and 2nd Corinthians the week after.
Pay off Some Big Debt ($4,000- $6,000)

So since May 20th, I have managed to pay off $1900 in debt. Pretty awesome huh.  That is almost half of the lower end of my goal. I still have July and August to go to make a good impact on my Summer goal. Keep watching to see what happens.

Explore my city for free (Jacksonville FL)

Okay so the beach and the Library and the park have pretty much been my only stops. It is so hard to want to go outside in Florida heat. Much of the time we sit in the house, watch TV, read books, color and build blocks (my daughter and I). I do plan to go swimming but I don’t think I will add much else to the list unless it is an inside activity. I think I will wait till fall to explore my city for free, or at least the end of summer.

Around the House

There are a couple of things around the house that I need to tend to. Junk and Organization are their names. Under the junk list is the built up crap in the garage, the clothing that needs to be donated, given away or sold, and the many wonderful things in the guest room spare closet that needs to be dealt with.  Under organization falls almost every closet in the house, the garage, and the big  blue dresser in my entry way that serves as an entry way table. I also need to organize our pictures. They are everywhere but in the frames and albums they should to be in. With that said I have already started gathering photos and putting them in albums.

Anyone else have summer goals, or a bucket list? I guess that is a trendier term.

Other popular posts!

My Total Debt Update (1st Trimester)

Someone Mysteriously Paid Off My Debt

Snowflakes in June: Finding News Ways to Add to My Debt Payment

June Debt Update

Current Debt Status:

BOA CC Balance: $0.00 donkey kicked this; 1/15/2013

NavyFed CC Balance: $0.00 power punched this; 3/21/2013

Nelnet Balance: $0.00 choke slammed this; 3/21/2013

Federal Student Loan Balance: $16895.00 When I wrote this last month I had already applied 1504 toward the loan. Since then I applied another $500 in May and in June I applied $1400 toward the loan. That’s a grand total of $1900 since the last time I wrote. If you can tell I like nice even numbers!

Car Loan: $20,052.59 applied $478.00

So, I’m doing well this month! Even better than I thought. I was determined to meet the goal of $1200 that I set for myself last month and I am right on track to not only meet but surpass that goal by about $200. I have taken precaution in my spending and on top of that my hubby has started receiving a hazardous pay during his deployment. My next goal $1400. This is an ambitious goal because I am taking a trip mid July and have house guests during the Fourth. Wish me luck!

What are your goals. Have you payed off your debt?

Someone Mysteriously Paid Off My Student Loan

Oh how funny and irritating this true story is! Welp I’ll start by saying that I work very hard to put every penny towards my student loans. Each month I patiently await for the 15th, thats our payday, when I can apply this large calculated amount of money towards my loan. I know that sounds weird but it is like a Holiday for me. A special time when I can see the money on my loan melt away, but this month I was in for a huge surprise.

I payed money towards my loan as I usually do. I go into the website, type in $1,000.00 then hit click, then I wait. If I apply any amount to my loan during a Thursday or Friday I have to wait an entire weekend to see the updated amount on the loan, but on Saturday I noticed that it had already been removed from my checking account.

I then went to check my loan account and realized something miraculous under the “How much do I owe” tab. The amount reported $0.00 owed. What!! I immediately began to have some shallow breathing. I sat straight up in my bed. I had not made the aweful mistake of taking $18,000 from my checking account to pay for my loan had I?

No! My account specifically said “Other” when I searched to see where the payment had come from. Whoopee! Do you know what I can do with this extra money? I can start paying off my car early, then fund a large emergency fund, oh and don’t forget save for a car for the hubby. This is awesome, but where did this money come from? I have been praying, but would this loan just up and disappear? Who would want to pay off $18K in loans?

So I decided right then that I would call my loan company. Sure it was midnight, but I wanted to check to see if the automated lady would help me understand why I did not owe them anymore. After putting in plenty of information for her to recognize who I am, she then let me know my account had been taken over by a company named FedLoan and that they would be further handling all of my account information. What? So you mean I still gotta pay somebody for this loan.

Sigh. All of my excitement left. It really felt good for those three minutes and thirty seconds to imagine one of my biggest financial barriers where wiped smooth away. I did some heavy dreaming in that three minutes and then back to reality.

Have you ever thought that your loans were magically wiped away? Or were they really?!

Image from Snorgtees.com

Snowflakes in June: Finding New Ways to Add to my Debt Payment

June is a bittersweet month for me. I am completely free from working and the summer is mine. I think I’m more excited than the students. On the other hand, my extra sub income is gone out the door. I have been privileged to even be able to work, but now that I have three months off, I am going to have to make my own snow.

For you to understand the Snowflakes, I must share with you the Debt Snowball Theory. In this debt repayment plan you pay the bare minimum on all of your debts except the one with the smallest amount. You will pay the bare minimum plus add any leftover money at from your budget toward the smallest one. This is called a Snowball. When that debt is completely payed off you take all the money used toward paying the small debt and roll it over to pay the next largest debt. This becomes a debt snowball. Once that debt is payed off you roll all money from the last two debts into the third one. And so on and so on.

Snowflakes are extra small amounts of money that are found within the budget or income that is used to make a snowball. Examples include but are not limited to rebates in the mail, loose change, extra money left over from the grocery or gas fund, side income that may be minimal, selling items on Craigslist or eBay, and much more.

With that said I will sell more items, cut my grocery, gas, and whatever other bill I can cut, collect loose change, and indulge myself in Swagbucks (an online rewards program) to cut costs in other areas. Goal – $200 extra bucks a month. I pray that some months it’s way more than that but I want to be realistic in my expectations.

What things do you to bring in snowflakes? What is your largest snowflake you’ve recieved?