Even though I was so happy to buy my dream home, I really didn’t feel too comfortable doing it.  For most of us, getting a mortgage is the biggest debt that we will ever have, and for me it felt like a burden.  I know that I needed a roof above my head, but the sheer size of the mortgage made it feel like there was a big weight on my shoulders.

But the day that I took possession of my home, I vowed that I would make a big effort to make at least one extra mortgage payment each year.  The mortgage that I had allowed one extra payment per year (up to ten percent of the original value), and I figured if I could even pay a few thousand dollars that it would shave off years in the long run.

I thought that extra payment would be easy to make, but what I failed to forget was that there are extra expenses when you live in a home.  I had never had to fix my own plumbing before, and the shingles needed to be replaced.  That meant that there was no real extra money to put down on the mortgage.

But I scrounged up some money and paid an extra $500 down on it this year.  I hope that I will do better next year with it, but at the same time, at least it feels like I am making progress – I just don’t want to be paying my mortgage for the next twenty five years.

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