I probably mentioned this recently, but as of right now our mortgage balance is $207,999.

What is interesting about this is that the first mortgage we ever took out was for $208k.

So yeah, pretty much, 9 years later, and where are we but back to where we started?

It's even less exciting considering we paid off a solid $8 in less than 2 years, on our first mortgage since it was a 15-year-loan. Way higher interest, but way shorter term. It paid off. Was life before kids... I should look up the lowest balance we got to and be set to have a celebration once we dip below it. But it's kind of sad it will take almost 9 years to get there, all the same. We'll have lived in this house 9 years before we get to the mortgage balance we started with? Blech.

On the flip side, we live in a way better neighborhood, our interest rate is lower, we have twice the house, we have a yard and a garage and a laundry room, and many things we didn't before. All this was for $40k more than we paid for our first condo. (The house itself, "as is" was actually the exact same price as we paid for our condo but we put about $20k into structural upgrades, $10k into interior upgrades, and $10k into landscaping).

We paid $20k cash down on that extra $40k, and we financed $20k of it, let's say. As of today we have paid all of that extra off.

In a way you can say all of the excess we got with this house is officially paid off. & that is pretty sweet. What a steal it was! (Having done the lower-cost-of-living move).

But the aggressive/conservative side of me is kind of miffed right now, all the same. I've been a homeowner for 9 years and owe no less on my home than the day I first bought. Not much to brag about there. !!

Well, even though we do have a 30-year amortization, we are paying off $4k/year, since we are getting further into the loan. So I guess from this point we are paying it off as fast as we were when it was a 15 year loan, in a sense. $8k paid over the next 2 years (just as the first 2 years in our condo), easy, and from there we should progress. Our goal is to pay this mortgage off in 20 years, shaving off 10 years, and we have thus far made little effort to accelerate it. The kids have slowed us down a bit. But it is still VERY in the cards. The mortgage has gotten cheap with time. We pay the same (or less really) than we did 9 years ago, considering inflation and lower interest rates which shaved $200/month off our original loan.

Since having kids, I feel like we are getting back to square one on a lot of things financially. It's kind of silly to get back to the mortgage, retirement savings pace, savings in the bank, etc. we had at 25. But that's what we are working towards. We had way more income and way less responsibilities when we were 25. Still a long ways to go to get anywhere near back to that, really...

But yeah, we seem to be getting there in many regards. Slowly, but surely.