This year, a new law went into effect in Wisconsin, allowing 10-year-olds to hunt. My motherly protection made me wish for my 10-year-old to ignore this law, and my survival instinct wanted all of us to stay out of the woods entirely. But since I married into a family of hunters, my vote didn’t really carry.

The new Wisconsin law requires all 10-12-year-olds to be accompanied by an adult mentor who had completed hunter safety. So both my son and husband took the course together this summer. For my husband, all the material was review – he’d never taken the course before and had been “grandfathered” in. But his own dad was such a stickler about safety, he may as well have already earned the certificate 30 years ago, when his dad started taking him into the woods.

Father and son dutifully went to the class this summer and I’ve never seen my son study for anything like he did this class. He practically memorized the book, and made note cards to practice the questions he thought would be on the test.

Both passed the course and earned their hunter safety badges.

A couple weeks ago, they participated in Wisconsin’s “Youth Hunt” – two days designed to give youth hunters ages 10-15 an opportunity to hunt deer and gain valuable hunting experience at a time when other hunters are not authorized to hunt deer with a firearm.

I couldn’t have been prouder to hear my 10-year-old explain that “he just couldn’t squeeze the trigger” because he wasn’t sure it was a clear-enough shot. Craig didn’t want to wound the deer without killing it. He let Dad take her down and they got another doe tag for the next day, but never got another shot.

Though this can be a dangerous sport, I’m comforted to know both the men in my life approach it with such serious thought. Craig told me, “I think next time I’ll be ready to squeeze the trigger.”

If you’ve been reading this series, you know our goal is to have our second mortgage paid off within a year. Part One in this series is here.

You may think our plan is silly, or unattainable. You may think we’ve been frivolous in the past – or that the cuts we’re making are ludicrous. Whatever frame of reference you’ve come from, I hope I’ve offered some food for thought.

A FEW LESSONS WE’VE LEARNED

We tend to spend what we have – in order to make mortgage-paydown a priority, we need to budget it like a bill.

If we didn’t look at the cumulative savings, we wouldn’t choose to tighten the belt at all. Saving ten dollars here and there did not offer us enough incentive to bother with a budget. A complete budget recalibration was in order. When I did the math to look at annual savings in multiple areas of the budget, I finally understood how much money was slipping through the cracks.

We don’t miss what we’ve cut out of the budget. So the fact some of the cuts are short-term (like travel) should make this whole process far simpler than we thought it would be.

Our pay-down went faster once the loan amount was less. The bank gets most of your payment early in the amortization, so the quicker you can reduce the balance, the better.

For instance:
• If you owe 100,000 at a rate of 5% and amortized at 15 years, only $375 of your $800 payment goes toward the principle on your loan.
• If you’ve paid it down to $50,000, $575 goes to principle.
• At $25,000, $685 of your $800 payment pays down your loan.

An excellent credit score translates to thousands saved in closing costs. Know your score and if it’s low, figure out what’s bogging you down.

Spreadsheets can be FUN - especially when you watch the loan balance decrease by leaps and bounds. The decreasing loan amount and budgeted monthly expenditures are tangible outcomes that validate your efforts when achieved.

Some budget cuts should be permanent. Some can be temporary. Both are good.

Ours is just a smaller second mortgage. But you have to start somewhere, right? Other families may need to start by paying off their car loans or credit card debt. Will we pay it off in a year? I hope so. Either way, we know we’ll have developed habits that last a lifetime – and we’ll have passed on these habits to our kids.

Our first mortgage? Well that’s a different story – and one that looks to be about 15 years from its conclusion. But with our new habits in place, after we reach our first goal, I bet we’ll find room in the budget for accelerating these payments as well – while loosening up on some of the sacrifices too.

Thank you for joining me on my Mortgage Payoff 101 series. What is your debt-control goal?

MORTGAGE PAYOFF 101 SERIES:
Getting Started
Monthly Charges
The Credit Card
Sell Your Stuff
Lessons Learned

This is Part Four of my series outlining our plan for paying off our second mortgage in the next year. Part One is here.

If you’ve been following along on my series, it’s quite possible you find yourself in a similar situation to mine: you spent a lot of years accumulating stuff you don’t need or want anymore.

The good news is that surprisingly, some of your stash may still have value. And while one item may only be worth $10 or even $50, together all your unused valuables could equal a couple mortgage payments.

You might be surprised at how much “junk” you have sitting around, taking up space, which is of value to someone. Whether you use a garage sale, eBay or Craigslist to hawk your wares, just do it.

Over the course of a month, we purged from our household a long list of motorcycle apparel (husband had already sold the cycle), homeschooling curriculum materials, kids clothing, a guitar, piano keyboard and LOST videos. Grand total? More than $1000 – two second-mortgage payments.

TIPS:

Inventory your no-longer-needed items. Remember to check the garage, closets, kids’ toyboxes and attic.

Research the value. Search eBay under “completed items” to value your goods. Choose a price that will sell – your stuff was just gathering dust before you did inventory.

Host a garage sale and invite neighbors to join in on the sale. Even if they don’t bring items to sell, they may bring their cash to buy – and they’ll tell their friends.

Try eBay for smaller items that would get bidders nation-wide, but consider listing fees, sale fees and PayPal fees when you price the item. Be very careful about your description and make sure electronic items function.

Use Craigslist for almost anything. You may want to relist unsold items after a week – older listings usually remain ignored.

Spread the word on social networking sites! I sold two items to friends when I directed them to my Craigslist listing via Facebook.

Good luck!

How do you sell your stuff?

MORTGAGE PAYOFF 101 SERIES:
Getting Started
Monthly Charges
The Credit Card
Sell Your Stuff
Lessons Learned

We know we want to help our kids learn to say “No” to drugs, but how much do we consider the other important factors that often result in drug and alcohol resistance?

Check out this month’s Positively Speaking column at 5 Minutes for Mom. I address two assets that a lot of asset-rich, drug-free kids have in their arsenals.

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