Mortgages, part 3, or The Happy Part

I got another end of year report from my mortgage company. The escrow account estimates.

See, insurance and taxes are paid out of the mortgage. At least, mine are. I don't know if that's normal or not.

All that money I've paid? I forgot a portion of it is insurance and taxes. Almost a third of the refinanced mortgage payments, actually, if my estimates are correct. That means in 10 years, almost a third of what I paid to the mortgage company was taxes and insurance, not interest. I would have been paying that anyway.

So, I haven't been wasting my time, or money, paying ahead on principal. The mortgage company isn't lying about what I've paid on the principal. That huge amount breaks out into smaller, reasonable amounts. I just had to take a couple of weeks and marinate on it.

I still wish I'd known to get a 15-yr, fixed rate mortgage with 20% down, but I did what I could at the time, and it wasn't horrible. I still have a real chance of paying this off in 3 years.

I'm not likely to ever "make the money back" by selling the house, but I never intended to sell the house. I bought this house for life. We like each other most days, and I like to think we respect each other the rest of the time.

So this is probably the last post about the mortgage for a few years, but I will absolutely let you all know when the last payment is posted.

Applaud the jellyfish.