My 1st year of home ownership! This past year has flown by but yet… the days seemed to crawl by slowly. During the past year, I really cracked down on my budget and was able to cut away 3 years’ worth of mortgage payments by paying down extra on principle. In total, I paid just under $13,000 extra directly towards principle so just over $1,000 extra each month.
My mortgage payments are right around $1,000 a month. 3 years equals 36 months meaning $36,000 worth of payments that I no longer have to make! Now of course we have to take into account the extra principle payments I made this past year. So, $13,000 in extra payments subtracted from the $36,000 equals $23,000 in savings. Making extra payments directly towards principle is a great way to cut down your outstanding mortgage balance!
$36,000 – $13,000 = $23,000 In Savings!
My house was bought as a semi-fixer upper. Those first few days were long hours of hard work backed up with lots and lots of elbow grease!
There is still a long way to go and never ending projects but I am so happy to own my own home! This past month, I noticed a leak coming from under the kitchen sink. I put a pan down to catch the drip but then I noticed a second leak. I couldn’t directly identify the source of the second leak, it was just running out the bottom of my cupboard. I brought in a Plumber to take a look. He came in and just started counting the leaks. 1 leak, 2 leaks… 5 leaks? We ended up needing to replace all the sink plumbing and putting in new drains. It ended up costing around $350 plus another $150 to snake a clogged drain. I sure am glad I have an emergency fund in place to so I don’t have to worry about paying all my bills!
Stock Market Portfolio –
The stock market has been all over the place in the news and media. Speculation about the market crashing is running rampant. To be honest, no one knows… short term changes to the stock market change directions just about as often as the wind blows. These little back and forth right now don’t play a whole lot into the long term strategy that I have with my stock investments.
My portfolio is sitting just over $28,000 and, I made $61.10 in dividends in May!
Looking at my current holdings, I know this month I needed to focus on purchasing real estate stocks. I dropped from my target goal of making up 15% of my portfolio to 13%. So, I made purchases into more real estate stocks, or REIT’s to balance if out. Specifically, I purchased into 1 single stock this month. LTC focuses on investing into diverse, high quality senior housing health care properties. They have 183 properties that focus on end of life care which sadly is a great area to focus on in the upcoming years as the baby boomer generation retires and moves into that stage of life.
Photography Business –
Another great update for May, I actually sold 2 of my photo’s listed on stock websites! Yay!
This is fantastic because I am taking it as I am on the right track and there are more sales on the way! I plan on having residual income from selling prints and stock photos for a long time. All a part of my plan to work for myself and enjoy life!
Feel free to check out my Photography Website to read about my different travel adventures around the world. Or you can take a look at some awesome video clips I’ve put together on my YouTube Channel. If you really love my work, take a gander at what’s on sale in my Photo Gallery or my Etzy Page.
What I want to focus on –
As far as this website, time has been my biggest downfall. Not budgeting my time well enough this past month to really put in for this site. Luckily, my workload at my day job is evening out. I actually took a Friday off! my first day off this year! I plan on taking 2 days off in June and almost a week in July. So I am getting recharged as I was very burned out. There is also some peace of mind about my day job, even though I am still not sure what I am going to do. I am just taking it day by day and will make the best choices for me and where I want to be in this life.
For June, I plan on focusing more on retirement planning. The last two posts I did were on Understanding the Different Retirement Accounts and on the Thrift Savings Plan. Both of which I think break it down quite nicely. Next is on to IRA’s aka Individual Retirement Accounts then 401k’s and 403b’s. Lots of good things ahead!
Long-Term Goals –
- Pay off my Mortgage and be 100% debt free! My goal is to pay it off completely by 2030. A hard target! But if I stick to my budget and keep reminding myself why it is some important I know I can make it happen!
- Participate in a Triathlon and a Winter Triathlon. I completed a full marathon while I was stationed in Hawaii back in December of 2014 And I also completed the Baton Memorial Death March in spring of 2019. That is held in New Mexico every year and it truly an emotional experience!
- Build a Dividend Portfolio that generates around $2,000 per month. That would equate to about $24,000 annually, just from dividends. With my current diversification strategy, that would mean a $600,000 stock Portfolio earning an average of 4% on dividends. We are a long way away from reaching that but, it’s all about those baby steps along the way!
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