February is Rocking!

I just wanted to write a quick post about how awesome February is shaping up to be for the debt snowball.

We sent in our taxes last week and expect our refund to arrive next week.  Our refund was about $3300, which will go directly to loans.

In addition to that, we refinanced our home from a 30 year fixed @ 5.0% to a 15 year fixed at 3.25%.  Currently our house payment, included private mortgage insurance (PMI), taxes, and home-owner's insurance totals roughly $765.  It's going to go up to $925 (and we're eliminating PMI), but our loan term has been cut in half.  I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but the amount we're saving in interest is ginormous.  However, the other benefit of refinancing our home loan is that we get to skip a full 2 months of house payments, so all the saved money goes to loans.

But wait, there's more.  Not only are we getting a great interest rate on our house, but because our loan-to-value (how much you owe compared to how much your house is worth on the market) is low we're actually getting money back from the refinance this month to further put towards loans.

So, all in all we'll have about $6000-$6500 to put towards loans this month.  We've decided to pay off my ECSI loan which rests at about $5200 and then put the rest towards the lowest Gate loan remaining.  The main reasons for skipping to this loan is 1) It has the third highest monthly payment ($80) and the second highest interest (5%) of all our remaining loans.  2) It doesn't sync with Mint.com, so it's a logistical pain.  And 3) I'm sick and tired of having to use their website that was set up in what feels like the 90s.

And also, since there's no house payment due next month either we'll have enough money to knock out the smallest remaining Gate loan AND pay the balance due for the cruise.    

I'm very excited about how this is shaping up.  Sometimes I'm too excited.  I look at the calendar and want it to move faster, I want to be done with our loans.  But I know we're headed in the right direction, and I know that we're ahead of our projections, so I will try and slow down and enjoy the experience of destroying our debt.