My Experience of Tracking Expenses

Our household uses Google SpreadSheet to track our expenses. Feel Free to download it for your own use.

Why Tracking Expenses

When it comes to personal finances, most experts suggest setting up a budget. I once tried to set up a budget for our family, and it was hard because I actually did not know how much we spent each month. Of course,we know we are living within our means. We pay our bills on time, do not have any credit card debt and have more money stashed away in our joint saving account every month. However, if you ask me how much we spend on groceries each month, I simply don’t know!!

For us, tracking expenses seems to be more important than setting a budget.

Why it is a difficult Task

  1. I’m not the only one spending money in the family. Dragging another person to track expenses with me is difficult. I don’t think Mr. G is not willing, it’s simply that he doesn’t see any need for it. After all, we are having extra savings every month.
  2. I’m a bit OCD on properly categorizing expenses. Say, if I go to Costco, some of the purchases are groceries, and some are more discretionary expenses. Should I split up that single Costco charge in my credit card to various categories so I will be more accurate? And if I simply put all of them under grocery, it does not seem to be right. And Plus, if I split the expenses, when I’m matching against the credit card statement, I may need extra mental processing to like the couple lines in the spreadsheet with a single entry in my credit card statement. SO WHAT SHOULD I DO?
  3. There are expenses that only happen yearly or a couple times a year. Should I evenly divide that expense into each month so that I can have a more accurate monthly expense? 

The list can go on and on. When I want to do something, I tend to over analyze the task and OCD on details. Eventually, I will be too overwhelmed, so I will give up.

How I finally make it work

In 2020, I decided to tackle this tracking expenses task. To prevent myself from over complicating the task, I set up the following guidelines.

  1. Keep it simple. 
    • It is okay to categorize the whole Costco trip to grocery as long as that trip mainly contains essential purchases. But if I pick up a big ticket item, i.e., an iPad or a Dyson vacuum, I should further divide up the Costco bill to accurately track our expenses. Yet, if Mr. G just gets a pair of docker pants for work, I will not bother with it.
    • Do not worry about spreading out the bi-annual auto insurance premium, or the annual term life insurance premium. Just record them as the expenses occur. 
  2. Do not judge when you enter your expense. DO NOT YELL to your husband if he spends $200 on cigars. DO NOT BEAT yourself up for spending too much on that dinner. Simply log ALL your expenses first. 
  3. Have a designated box to dump ALL receipts and packing slips. You do not need to put your expenses in everyday as it probably is too much. Process the box when you have time. In my experience, you can easily enter your expenses when you’re watching TV.
  4. Keep the expense report online, i.e., on google sheet, making it easier to access and edit the file as well as sharing it with family members.

For our family, I put all expenses into the following main categories:

  • Food: grocery and dine-out expenses
  • Utilities: cable, internet, cell, water/gas/electricity
  • Home-related: mortgages, HOA fees, Lawn care expenses, cleaning crew (if applicable)
  • Donation/Gift: Charitable contribution, gifts to family/friends, financial support to parents
  • Auto-related: parking, gas, car washes, toll, or car payment (if applicable)
  • Child-related: daycare, preschool, extra curricular, supplies
  • Travel: air tickets, rental cars, hotels …
  • Insurance – auto, health, life, umbrella …
  • Health: contact lenses, doctor visits, eye exams …
  • Tax: something we all wish we can avoid …
  • Investment/Saving: 401K, 529 plan, Traditional/Roth IRA, money stashed away after paying all the expenses and investment.
  • Discretionary: shopping in the mall, entertainment

Then, I sub-categorize each main category. For example, I put groceries, dine-out and alcohol under Food.  You can subdivide a category in a way that is meaningful to your situation. However, try not to go over the top on the sub-categories.

Discretionary is any expense that we can go by without. Of course, someone can argue that dine-out expenses are totally discretionary. For us, we do enjoy dining out occasionally. And if we are out the whole day with little G, making a meal at home is not that possible. So, I won’t put dine-out under the discretionary category.

If you’re interested, you can download my Google Spreadsheet to start tracking your expenses. Here are some brief instructions on how to use it:

  • Overall – Lists all categories and sub-categories that you’re tracking, and it also shows of your monthly and yearly total.
  • Jan to Dec – each sheet is where you want to enter your expenses. 

As you enter your expenses in the Jan to Dec worksheet, the Overall worksheet will also be updated to keep a total for you. This little spreadsheet has been a great help to our family to keep track of our expenses. It also helps us to be more aware of our discretionary spending. I hope you will find my spreadsheet to be useful. If you are somewhat familiar with Excel, you can easily modify the spreadsheet to suit your situation.

Practical Tips if you are OCD like me

  1. FSA/HSA or dependent care FSA:
    • FSA/ dependent care FSA: I do not enter FSA deductions in the expense even thought they are in my pay statement. I simply enter all expenses that are reimbursable from FSA as time goes by. If I have left over money in FSA and that cannot be rolled over to next year, I will enter it as an expense at the end of the year. Maybe, I should have a stupid-loss category??
    • HSA: I use HSA as an investment vehicle, so I enter the HSA deduction in the investment category.
  2. Investment gain/loss: I only record money I move to the brokerage account as Saving-investment. But I choose not to record any realized loss/gain in the expense report. My goal in the expense report is to get an idea on how I spend my income. But of courses, if your investment income is your major income, you should treat it differently than I do.
  3. Reward from credit card:
    • If I redeem points to cash/gift card, I will put that under Income-misc. And as I use the gift card, I will enter my expense accordingly.
    • If I redeem points to air tickets or hotel, I will simply leave it and not enter into the report.
  4. Money from selling on ebay or local consignment store: I will enter that income also as Income-misc.
  5. Gift cards:
    • If I receive the gift card as gift, I will enter that as Income-misc, and then enter the expense paid by the gift card later as other out-of-pocket expenses.
    • If I purchase the gift card myself, I enter the purchase as expense right away, so that the purchase will be accounted for regardless if I remember to use it or not. But when I use the gift card to pay for future purchases, I will not enter it in the report (if I remember …).

What to do with your expense report

It is totally up to you.

For us, we simply want to review the report monthly and clearly see if we are happy with the way we use our income. To be fair, we only have Jan 2020 report so far, so it may be little too early to tell what we will do next.

Why we spend money on umbrella insurance

First of all, what is an umbrella insurance? 

An umbrella insurance policy is extra liability insurance coverage that goes beyond the limits of the insured's homeowners, auto or watercraft insurance. It provides an additional layer of security to those who are at risk of being sued for damages to other people's property or injuries caused to others in an accident. It also protects against libel, vandalism, slander, and invasion of privacy.- Investopedia

But I do not agree with the following … 

The added coverage provided by an umbrella insurance policy is most useful to high net worth individuals who own a lot of assets or very expensive assets and are at significant risk of being sued.

After all, a sizable judgement can claim not only your existing assets, but also your future earnings. 

In order to purchase an umbrella policy, you’re required to have $300K liability coverage in your auto and home insurance. You may think that a $300K settlement is rare, but in fact, it may not be as rare as you think. Here are some examples of umbrella insurance claims. 

Let’s be clear. You do not want to be under uninsured when it comes to personal liability coverage. A serious injury involving significant lost wages and/or lifetime medical care can lead to a catastrophic settlement. 

For our family, we choose to have umbrella coverage for a number of reasons.

#1 Liability coverage Lawsuit seems to be in everyone’s mind when it comes to liability. My friend told me a story. She was babysitting two 5 years old boys in a play date. One of them misfired a toy gun and hit the other’s face. The other boy immediately said, “you’re lucky that you hit my face. If you hit my eyes, I will sue you”. Seriously, that’s a 5 years old!!

#2 Do you drive a car? From the insurance perspective, chances of having claims filed against auto insurance are a lot higher than home insurances. After all, auto vehicles are not a stationary objects and they can be operated at certain speeds, so that totally makes sense. Our umbrella insurance covers all 3 of our cars, our home and our rentals. But if you look closely at the breakdown of the coverage, each additional car increases our premium while our homes and rentals basically are free-riders in the policy. 

#3 Do you have a rental? When we started out having rentals, we would like to set up an LLC to host all of them. I do believe it is a good practice to have an LLC especially if you plan to have multiple rentals under your belt. Due to timings and loan complications, we ended up purchasing the rentals under our own names. Nevertheless, since we do not have the LLC to separate our rentals from our personal assets, we have the umbrella policy to protect ourselves. Is this the best practice? It may not be. But we are comfortable with this level of protection at this moment. After all, an LLC is not going to protect your asset absolutely as the judge can also pierce the veil of LLC during litigation.

#4 Do you have a family depending on you financially? When it comes to settlement over a lawsuit, not only your present asset, your future earning is also at stake. Imagine, you receive a judgement of $750K, and your insurance is maxed out at $250K. You have to cover the remaining $500K, and your future earnings can also be garnished. In this case, your spouse and kids would be the collateral damage in the lawsuit.

#5 Do you have kids? When you have kids, you may be asked to chaperon kids for field trips. Should an unfortunate accident happen, you may be charged with negligence. What if your little one’s BFF accidentally gets injured when coming over for a play date? Yup, most of us can assume that some bruises or even broken arms are parts of normal childhoods. But do the parents of the injured kid think the same way?

#6 Umbrella insurance is actually not that expensive. An umbrella insurance covering two cars and one house with a payout of $1M costs around $150 to $300 annually. For us, we believe it is money well spent.

#7 Legal defense cost When it comes to any sort of lawsuit, the legal fees can be very expensive. Not only that, for most of us who do not have any experience dealing with law firms, finding the right lawyer can also be a daunting task as well. If you have the insurance company liable for the potential settlement, it is simply its best interest to defend you. In addition, if you’re sued, your umbrella policy will cover the defenses cost, regardless if it is your fault or not. On top of that, the defenses fee is in addition to the limit in your liability coverage.

The Final Verdict

Ultimately, it comes down to this final reason for having the umbrella insurance.

#8 Peace of mind We value the peace of mind knowing that we are adequately covered in case we run into unfortunate circumstances. It provides a safety net for our family. For some families, considering the unlikelihood of filing a claim in the umbrella insurance, they may dismiss the idea of having one right away. For us, we always try to prepare for the worst, so the benefits of the umbrella policy outweighs the cost.

And, one last reason which does not apply to us, but apply to a lot of families …

#9 Do you have a dog? If your dog accidentally hurts someone, you may face a lawsuit. Your dog may be really well trained, but accidents happen all the time. And should you take the chance? By the way, this reason is applicable to all kinds of pets that can potentially cause harm to others.

Think twice before becoming a landlord

Yes, the rumor is spot-on. Being a landlord is no fun at all. There are endless sources of troubles, such as …

  • bad tenants: those who do not pay rent on time, or even worse, who trash your house.
  • contractors: good contractors are hard to come by. Their schedules are always full, and matching their schedule with your tenant can be a daunting job.
  • insurance companies: they are particularly picky on rentals.
  • city/county/state regulation on rentals and building code: these regulations can change at anytime, and you have only one choice which is to comply.
  • neighbors of your rentals: in general, people do not like rentals next to their homes.
  • a new set of tax code: even if you outsource your tax, you should still know the tax code so that you can review your tax return. After all, you are ultimately responsible for everything on your tax form.

Before committing to be a landlord, ask yourself the followings.

#1 Does your potential rental actually have a positive cash flow?

My accountant once said, “oh you are doing pretty well, as you are actually making money out of your house”. Surprisingly, a lot of landlords are putting money into their rentals every month to keep it going!! This is particularly true in the case of condos due to the high condo fee. Do not fool yourself that you’re having a sound investment if your rental does not produce a positive cash flow unless you have strong conviction that your rental will be appreciated at a very good pace in the next couple of years. Your house can have many things going wrong as you can’t possibly imagine. That involves not only financial resources, but also your time. So ask yourself, is your rental really worth your time and financial resources? Can you actually come out ahead by investing in an index fund?

#2 Will you self-manage the property or outsource that to the property management?

You can hire property management company / real estate agent to manage the property. I did not because of the hefty 5 – 10% management fee. If you plan to purchase multiple properties, it’s best that you get your hands dirty to the nuts and bolts of managing tenants and building relationship with contractors to fix your house.

To ease the stress of self-management, there are things you can do before your tenants move in to avoid the potential endless phone calls from your tenants:

  • properly inspect your property and fix the issues
  • deal with all the county/city/state rental requirements, i.e. rental license, lead paint inspection if any
  • carefully screen your tenants. A good credit score can only tell so much. Meet your potential tenant and get a feel of how decent this person is. My agent somehow has good intuition, so I always ask him to screen tenants for me.
  • spell out tenant’s responsibilities clearly in the contract, i.e. lawn maintenance.

Rest assured. Most tenants are reasonable human beings. They usually do not call you in the middle of the nights. Think about it; they are also afraid running into a slumlord. So treat them nicely, and in general, they will do the same to you and your property.

#3 Do you have an emergency fund for renovations and repairs in the house?

As a landlord, you will run into fixing houses a lot more than you may expect. Do not rely on the number of times you have to fix something at your  home as the guideline on how often your tenant will call you. Fixing houses is not cheap. The rentals I have are built in the 1960s era. They are solidly built compared to a lot of new houses these days. However, since they are old houses, and the maintenance were somewhat neglected during the time the houses were foreclosed or under short sale, so in the past couple years, I did a lot of repairs and renovations.

Here is a brief summary of what I have done in the last couple years.

  • New water heater and HVAC system. The water heater runs about $1,000 each and the whole new HVAC system is at $5,000.
  • My rental had sewage backup issue to the basement. I got a plumber to snake it twice, and each snake costed $400 to $500. Eventually, it was determined that the sewage pipe somehow was broken up in the middle of the front yard, and hence the sewage backed up to the house. The pipe was buried 15 ft below. This whole project set me back another $5,500.
  • A total renovation of a basement was $20,000.
  • I also installed new windows and put on a new roof.
  • Cutting down dying trees was expensive too.
  • Other miscellaneous issues, i.e. replacing thermostat, changing carpets and appliances.

To summarize, BE PREPARED.

The Final Verdict

A lot of people look at rentals with a pair of rose-colored glasses. Wow, you are having income without doing much every month. Yes, there is an income. But, the without doing much part may not be true all the time. There can be a lot work in managing the rental. Don’t get me wrong. Financially, it can be a sound and great investment, and it is a great diversification in your financial portfolio. But the nuts and bolts dealing with the on-going management can be daunting and challenging. Run the numbers and make sure that you have a good idea on the potential return as well as the various repairs that may come with your rental. Then, you can finally answer the question: is it worth it to be a landlord?

Do you have enough coverage from your auto insurance?

Last week, I came across this question on biggerpockets. It was from 5 years ago, but it is definitely relevant to 2020 as well. Sarah was at fault in an auto accident, and the injured party sued her for a payout of $200K due to the level of injury which was well above the limit of $15K in her policy. Sarah worried that she might lose her recently bought home over this lawsuit. I am sorry for both Sarah and the injured party. This mess over liability would have been totally avoidable if Sarah had purchased her auto insurance with the right amount of coverage.

Do you think you’re adequately insured? If you are not, what happened to Sarah can also happen to you.

In this era of competitive pricing and online quotes, most people may not have an insurance agent to explain their policies to them. Well, to be honest, only good agents bother to explain to you what you’re buying. If you don’t have a good agent, or you do not put too much thought into your policy, you probably just do a quick search online and may opt for the cheapest quote online. But that may only provide the bare minimum coverage required by law. Is that enough? How much do you need in liability coverage?

For example, California requires drivers to carry at least $15,000 per person / $30,000 per accident for bodily injury in auto insurance coverage. In some states, such as New Hampshire, it is not even required by law to carry an auto insurance. However, is no or bare minimum coverage right for you?

For me, the most important coverage in auto insurance is the liability coverage. Property damage is always limited to the value of the property. If you are at fault and total a Tesla/BMW/Porsche, you’re only liable for a fixed amount, i.e. $80K. Yes, it is a lot of money, BUT that’s it. However, when it comes to bodily injury liability, i.e. the injury resulted from the accident, there is essentially no limit on how much you can be responsible for. 

You get a policy not only to fulfill the requirement of the law, but also to protect others and yourself. If you carry an insurance with just the minimum coverage required in the state of California, the policy pays up to $15K per person involved in the accident and up to $30K per accident. In other words, if the injuries from the accident makes someone not able to work for 6 months along with intense physical therapy or even surgery, do you think $15K is enough? Absolutely not! 

The Final Verdict

Please seriously consider purchase a policy that provides reasonable coverage to protect others and yourself. It is definitely in your best interest to protect your assets in case of an at-fault accident. If your policy only provides a bare minimum payout, the injured party can sue you to pay for the rest of the damage that you bring to someone’s life. A judgement from the court can seize your assets to pay for the medical bills and loss of income. You can lose all your savings and your home. In addition, your future earnings can also be at stake and garnished until the judgement is fulfilled. 

Besides, if you could just put yourself in someone’s shoes, you also want whoever at fault in the accident to at least pick up the medical bills and cover your lost income during your recovery time. In a way, it is a social responsibility to have adequate coverage in your policy to cover injuries in a major accident. We all know how crazy hospital and medical bills can be.

Even if you are still a student, without much in your bank account or without any substantial assert, it is still wise to pay a higher premium to have a reasonable personal liability coverage. For our families, we opt for the higher coverage of $250,000 per person, $500,000 per accident, and $100,000 property damage for the peace of mind, and on top of that, we also purchase an umbrella policy to cover the highly unexpected. 

After all, we pay for insurance policy but we hope we do not need to use it. Yet, when we do need to use it, we count on it to serve its purpose. Act now and make it yours 2020 resolution! Check your policy and make sure you are adequately covered and protected!

Before we dive into FIRE

F.I.R.E. – Financial Dependence, Retire Early, has been a very hot topic in recent years. 

Simply speaking, FIRE followers aims to 1) save a big pile of money as early as possible, 2) once you reach your goal of saving, you retire from your job and withdraw from your high dividends stock/mutual fund and other investments to pay for your expenses. In essence, you are supposed to withdraw at that rate FOREVER without running out of your principal. 

Before you dive into FIRE, ask yourself WHY. Why you want to retire early? What are you going to do with your retirement life?

  1. If you want to quit your job simply because you hate it, is early retirement the only option? Or, is it the best option? Can you change your nature of work? “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” so that you don’t reject the favorable (the sense of achievement or the relationship build at work) along with the unfavorable (your job).
  2. Do you have a hobby or something you’re passionate about to occupy your time after retirement? The key is not retiring from your work, but to retire into something better. Do you have something better lined up in your retirement? If all you do in your spare time is browsing the web or watching TV dramas, do you think you will be happy doing that for the rest of your life? . 
  3. What is your way to enjoy your life? If you ideal retirement is travelling around the world, living in an expensive city, spicing up your wardrobe every season and sending your kids to private schools from preschool to college, even $200K passive income a year will not be enough. If you simply love to enjoy the nature, i.e. hiking, fishing or camping, and you’re also willing to move to a city where the living expenses are relatively lower, you probably get away with less in your savings. 
  4. If your goal is to raise a family full time, you probably should start saving up REALLY early so that you will not miss your biological clock to have a baby. People generally agree that it is best to be able to raise your kids full time. And you may get carried away and feel super nice thinking that you’re always there for your kids. However, is it always that rosy?

Let’s take my friend’s family as an example. My friend’s father sold his business in his mid 30s. From that time onward, his daily routine begins with swimming for an hour in the morning, then he goes home to have breakfast, reads the newspaper, has lunch, takes a nap in the afternoon, cooks dinner and then goes to bed. 

Is my friend inspired by her father and want to follow the footprint? Absolutely not. In her own words, “my father is not working nor contributing to the society. I don’t know what kind of example he wants to set for us by doing nothing in his life”. She never mentions how nice it is to have her parents with her all the time. In hindsight, my friend’s father loses the respect from his kids by not working. Again, working doesn’t necessarily equivalent to having a full time job. But if you don’t retire into something, continue learning and contribute to the society, it may not be well received by your kids.

If you decide that FIRE is for you, let’s see how you can be a FIRE.

For example, if there are a team of husband and wife with annual income of $200K and their overall federal + state income tax is at 30%. After tax, they have $120K left. Let’s assume that they can save 70% of their incomes, so they will save $7,000 monthly. Using the compound interest calculator, with $0 initial investment, $7,000 monthly contribution, an 8% annual return and compounded monthly they will reach $2M in 14 years.

Let’s examine a couple of assumptions and qualifications for you to be successful in FIRE .

#1 Your annual income has to be at a certain level.

Many bloggers share their experience to be FIRE; most of them work in pretty high paying industries. For example, The Money Habit and Financial Samurai was in investment banking, and Mr. Money Mustache was in engineering and computer science. Without that, it is very difficult to have that big pile of cash to start off the FIRE journey.

#2 You need to start early and be extremely frugal.

Usually, the FIRE endeavors want to retire fairly early, say 40 or earlier. Taken the ideal example early, the couple will be using $3K per month, and it takes 14 years to be there. People who successfully achieve FIRE by mid 30s employ extreme measures to save at least 70% of their incomes, such as:

  • Share an apartment with others so you can split the rent and utilities regardless if you’re single or married (with or without kids). Or, rent out the spare bedrooms in your own home.
  • Almost no dining out, and only eat at home.
  • No new clothes (except underwear or socks).
  • Travel at a very minimal level in terms of budget.
  • Minimize money spent on transportation, preferably working from home all the time. 
  • Clip coupons and drive out of your way to different stores to score the best deal in various categories of items. Plan your route carefully so you can save gas for your errands.

The list can go on and on. And you should lead this extreme lifestyle in your 20s and 30s in order to achieve FIRE. But that’s your early adulthood, your golden years before having kids or taking care of aging parents. These years are the best for traveling and experiencing the world. Trying different things out so you know what you are passionate about. Or, you should hang out with friends, may that be a movie, brunch, or visit a city together. These are seeds for lifelong friendships. All these experiences enrich your soul and mold you to be a more mature person. Can you put a price tag on them and run the analysis if the cost is worth it?

#3 The sustainable withdrawal rate is based on the historical data/past performance.

The performance data shown represents past performance, which is not a guarantee of future results. Investment returns and principal value will fluctuate, so that investors’ shares, when sold, may be worth more or less than their original cost. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data cited.

We don’t know the future. So you may want to park more money that suggested so that you don’t risk running out of your savings.

In addition, if you retire early, your time horizon relying on your saving is not 20-30 years like most people who retires at 65. If you retire at 40, you will be on your saving for at least 30 years, and my even be 50 years or more. 

#4 You may be a lot more worried in the stock market crash or economic downturns.

Provided that your portfolio for retirement is based on the stock/bond market, your principal will be highly coupled with the market. Do you remember the tech bubble in the early 2000, or the 2008 stock market crash? If you’re too young to remember that. Just imagine if you experience a 35% drop in your retirement principal in the matter of 2 months, do you have an iron stomach to absorb that news and sleep peacefully at night especially that’s all you rely on as income?

The Final Verdict

It sounds like I’m against FIRE. Actually, I’m not. It is good to have a fresh look at work and money and how to balance our lives with them. But it is important to carefully examine an idea before we get carried away by the potential benefits coming with it. Everything has its pros and cons, and FIRE is no exception. 

FIRE is great for someone:

  • Who is at a certain level of income so that it is possible to stash away a big portion of his income to build the savings needed to retire early.
  • Who is good at being frugal and don’t find that restrictive. 
  • Who plans to control expenses very well after retirement.
  • Whose way of enjoying life does not come with a hefty price tag.
  • Who has something he wants to devote his attention full time after quitting his job. Ideally, this passion can also be a side hustle to bring in some income.
  • Who does not have responsibilities for others financially. If you have aging parents who do not have enough for their retirement to lead a reasonable life, do you want to help? For me, it’s impossible to watch my parents living miserably and tell them, “Sorry, I can’t help you because I’m on my path to FIRE”. How about your kids? If they are into swimming and join the swim team which requires a lot of travel to swim meets, do you have a budget to support them? 

However, I strongly believe in the principles of watching your expenses, saving diligently, setting budgets, investing regularly and creating passive income sources. These are all great ideas from FIRE. And it is definitely nice to have the option of working or not. However, giving lots of experiences and opportunities during your 20s and 30s to save enough to retire at 40, I am not sure if that is for everyone. You are putting all your eggs into one basket assuming that you will be happily ever after once you are FIRE. Is life really that simple?

Why we are on track to pay off our mortgage early

There is a very common debate on whether you should pay down your mortgage or not. There are people rooted in both camps with the exact opposite views.

Yes, you should pay down your mortgage.

After all, you’re paying a lot of interest for the amount of money you’re borrowing. For example, for a $200K 30 years mortgage fixed at 4%, your total interest will be a whopping $143,739.01 provided that you do not pay any extra towards the principal throughout 30 years.

No, you should never pay extra towards the principal.

Taken the example earlier, you are paying only 4% of interest for $200K. Where can you find such a low interest for that much money? Nowhere! Instead of paying down your mortgage, you can invest the money via stock, mutual funds, real estate projects … the list can go on and on. And if your mortgage interest rate is low, i.e. 4%; it’s very likely you can make that return in a long horizon.

So now the question is … should you pay extra or not?

Like everything personal finance, it is a very personal matter. So the answer here is very simple: it depends.

For our household, we had a long discussion going back and forth on this topic. 

In 2015 March, we got our mortgage in our current home at a fairly good rate. To make it easier to remember, let’s say it’s 4%.

Then, in 2015 December, we decided to start paying extra on the mortgage, and that would put us 5 years earlier in paying off the mortgage. We believed there were merits to both paying or not paying off early views, so we started paying a little more but not too much. That was our Goldilocks spot at that time.

But in Sept 2019, we made our final and firm decision to up the game and on the road to pay off our mortgage in less than 9 years.

This is not an easy decision. We have been contemplating about it for a long while before making the final call. In order to do so, we have to watch over our expenses a lot more closely (but that actually is something we should have done in the first place). For us, there are many reasons behind this decision.

Reason #1: TAX consideration

Let’s go back to 2017 December, the tax reform was signed into law, and it changed the whole game plan on tax strategy! We live in a state that has high income and property tax. Before the tax reform, our state income taxes  from two full time jobs, our property tax plus our charitable donations always put us above the standard deduction. Hence, every single penny we paid towards mortgage interest would be tax deductible. Let’s assume our total tax (federal + state) rate was at 40%, so our 4% fixed rate mortgage was indeed only 2.4% with 40% discount. Taken the $200K mortgage example, the total of $143K interest was only $85K out of the pocket. Yes, it’s still a lot of money, but it is definitely much less than $143K.

After the tax reform, there is a $10,000 SALT cap deduction for married couples. Now, we may still pay $10K towards mortgage interest annually, but the SALT cap plus the mortgage interest probably will put us under the standard deduction.

In essence, our mortgage interest is no longer deduction after the tax reform. It is now a sold 4% instead of the discounted 2.4%. For us, this makes carrying our mortgage a lot less attractive.

Reason #2: Our life situation changed

We now have a son. As our lives are now evolved around him, so is our financial life too. Both Mr. G and I were debt free when we graduated from college. Once we had our first job, we started building our saving and investment. We hope little G can also start his adult life debt free. With this in mind, it is our goal to be mortgage free before little G starts college or even earlier, so we won’t be burdened by mortgage plus college tuition at the same time. 

Reason #3: We decided not to want take the roof over our heads as a leverage for higher return

If we keep the mortgage for the sake of “low interest rate” so that we can make more money somewhere else, we are basically taking the roof over our heads as a leverage. Stress and risk comes with leverage. What if one of us couldn’t continue working full time due to health or family responsibility? What if our investment go south? For us, knowing that we are on the shortest path to mortgage free gives us a sense of security and peace.

Reason #4: Financial Independence

If you like to read about personal finances, you should run into the term F.I.R.E. – “Financial Independence, Retire Early”. We are not sure if we are intrigued by Retire Early. But we are definitely interested in Financial Independence. For us, financial independence means that the incomes from our job are not absolutely necessary.

Like most families, mortgage is our biggest expense. If we are mortgage free, our annual expense will shrink drastically. Other than paying down mortgage, we are also working on some other passive income sources. If things go smoothly, by the time we are mortgage free, it is possible that our jobs will become non-mandatory. Isn’t that nice? 

The final verdict

Again, this is a very personal decision.

For example, my brother in law will never approve the idea of paying off mortgages early. For him, it is important to make the biggest return. He never pays safe. He invests heavily in the stock market, and making the biggest return over his money is the highest priority. 

On the other hand, Mr. G and I are a lot more conservative. We don’t pay attention to the ups and downs in the stock market that much. Low-cost mutual funds are our major investments. We usually employ a long term view on our investment. For us, we appreciate our peace of mind more than the excitement of winning big.

We know this decision is right for us. As we started making extra payment to pay off our mortgage in 9 years, we are super excited and looking forward for our pay off date. We are convinced that this is the right decision for our family.               

Hello World

Hey, I’m Mrs. Goldilocks, a working mother living in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area, with my loving husband and a little 3 years old baby boy (yes, Little Goldilocks will always be a baby for me, but I know in reality, he is already a little boy).

By day, I work in providing technology solutions to my clients. I started as a code monkey, and I now share more project management responsibilities. Regardless what I do during the day, I have other jobs as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a daughter in law, a landlord etc etc; in my spare time (or when my mind drift off to thoughts unrelated to work during the day), I always want to know how to do better in all my roles in life. I’m into the latest research in child development so I can help Little Goldilocks to reach his potential while constantly reminding myself not to become a tiger mom. Or, reading about behavioral economics helps me understand myself and others better. At the same time, I am also very much into personal finance topics, i.e. should I 1) pay off my mortgage as early as possible, 2) convert my starter home as a rental, 3) purchase properties with the sole purpose to rent them out, 4) invest in 529 or a prepaid college fund, or 5) join the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement.

I’m on a very common path of life, so the questions I have or issues I run into are probably relevant to a lot of people. I have a few close friends whom I can discuss these questions and issues freely. However, in most social occasions, topics such as parenting or personal finances can be rather touchy (think about politics and religions) so it is unlikely that we can discuss openly and in depth.

Once, a mother of two preschoolers told me that she didn’t put any money into 529 for her kids because she found that the idea of investing in an account with the sole purpose of paying for college was too restrictive. Or, a family with 3 girls and an annual income of $300K said they didn’t park any money into 529 as well. Even though our state has an annual limit of $2,500 income tax free per child per contributor (husband and wife count as two contributors) towards the state 529 plan, they decided not to contribute. I don’t agree with their decision. But at the same time, I don’t feel that it’s appropriate to continue the discussion, especially when the other parties do not seem to be interested.

However, these are very important topics and wouldn’t it be nice if we can pick each others’ brains?

I named this blog as Mrs. Goldilocks. Maybe a lot of people associate Goldilocks with a little girl running away from bears. For me, Goldilocks represents the perfect sweet point with balance and harmony. We all try to find the perfect balance in life, jobs that offer learning opportunities BUT not too overwhelming to the point that we have to sacrifice family or personal time. Or, we read tons of reviews on products so that we can pick the ones that provide the best value for our money.

But in reality, we all know we can’t strike the best deal or make the best choice every single time. I would like to use this blog as a platform to share my journey in finding my Goldilocks. And I hope these little recordings of my experience may be helpful to others as well!