What’s Standing in the Way of “Paid in Full”?

It’s Okay to Talk About Your Mortgage – Part 3

I wanted badly to call this post, “Future goals to pay off my house early.”  I held off because I’ve come to hate the word “goals”.  The Family Plan, while it might be considered a list of your goals, we’ve found that it’s easier for people to list their wants and desires than to come up with goals.  We’ve also found better results when people list their wants and allow those to be their life and family goals.  When a person creates their own Family Plan, we ask the question what do you want in each area?  What do you want to see?  What do you want to have?  What do you want to do?  Where do you want to go?  These are the questions we asked regarding our mortgage which means our home.  We want to own our home.  We don’t want anyone to be able to take it from us.  Regarding our mortgage, we want to receive the statement that says “paid in full” and we don’t want it to take 30 years.  Now that we know what we “want”, next comes the planning or the how to.

What’s standing in our way?
Pamela and I decided not to let the obvious deter us from listing our mortgage in our Family Plan.  Because you mustn’t forget, anything that’s out of sight, is often out of mind.  The mortgage in most cases is the largest debt a person possesses and it is for us as well.  We need, “want”, it to be in the forefront of our thinking.  It’s going to take the most work.
What’s standing in our way?  While you’re tempted to say its size and the lack of money, that’s not what’s standing in the way.  Let me go to the left for just a second (I haven’t done that in a while.)  Stop making excuses.  Stop blaming others.  Take ownership for what’s in front of you.  Stop playing the victim.  You can, if you want too bad enough, accomplish anything you set your mind to accomplish.  So let’s get to it.
What’s in the way?  Other debts are in the way.  If that’s the case and it is for us, our new focus is on removing the other debts.  Before the other debts were our bills, we had too many of them and we weren’t smart about our paying them.  By the way, if you’re not smart about your spending no one else will be.  Everyone will receive the money you give them, if you’re freely giving it out; I promise that.
What’s standing in our way?  Other debts that have higher interest rates, we must stop the bleeding of allowing credit cards, loans, and other “IOU’s” from stealing from us.  You need to form some debt-payoff momentum and when you do, nothing can stop you.  Notice how the thinking and planning process fuels each other.  We went from paying off our home to now thinking about how we can improve our spending and pay off small debts.

What can we do to get it done?
Paying off other debts will set you up for the larger ones.  What can you do to pay off your mortgage?  Payoff smaller debts, so that you know how it feels to get rid of it, something, anything.  I remember the day my wife informed me that my student loan had been paid off.  Years ago, we thought that would never happen, but we began using our Family Plan and created a plan of action.  If you set a plan of action for your family, you’ll be able to make strides towards reaching your goals.  The beauty of paying off one loan means you free up money to do something else.  You in turn get a raise.  You see, the reason you don’t have the raises you desire is because you keep sending your increase back out the door once you get it.  Get rid of a loan and see what options you have when you get your hands on your extra money.  Don’t forget the “want”.  Take as much of the extra to pay towards ridding yourself of another debt and finally your mortgage.  More about that at a later time.

Debt management comes later.
If you’ll continue following kerryaclark.com, we’ll get to the debt management section.  This one however, is about planning for your mortgage.  The plan is to own our home and have a mortgage that says “paid in full”.  Now it’s time to stretch yourself, but with a reachable plan.  We want to have this done by the time our daughter enters college.  That’s in the plan and each year and throughout the year we discuss this “want” and we realize it’s still large, but we get closer each day.

Today is Friday!
What do you want to see happen to your mortgage?  Be specific.  Here’s an added tip for the Christians out there.  You can use your written plan to fuel your faith and pray with specificity.  I’m trying my best to surround myself with others who share such practical tools and tips to better one’s life. Leave a comment below or click here to email me.