My not so nice spring carried over in to the start of my summer. I had a financial conundrum. My house in Decatur had been empty for months. I was paying a mortgage in GA and rent in NYC. It was breaking me. My rent was going up on my apartment. My savings were depleted. I wasn’t really sure what to do. But y’all know me and I ALWAYS have a plan.
1. Get a new tenant
I knew I would get a new tenant and it would only be a matter of time. My fear is that my savings would run out before I got a new tenant. And it almost did. But luckily I have a new tenant and should start to recoup some of the money I had to spend to keep my mortgage current.
2. Lower interest rate
I have an adjustable rate mortgage. As crazy as that sounds it has been to my advantage. For the last few years, knock on wood, my mortgage rate has adjusted down. That’s right. DOWN. The beauty of my mortgage is that even thought it is an adjustable rate it can never adjust more than 1% up or 1% down with a cap of 10%. When I bought my house in 2005 I think my mortgage rate was 5.75 or 6%. As of this blog post it is 2.75%. The interest on my house is lower than the interest on my student loans. Well I just got a letter in the mail that my interest rate is adjusting down again to 2.50%. What does that mean? Probably a savings of about $25 a month. Also, because of the restrictions on my mortgage, even if it did start to go up 1% each year it would take 3 years just for it to get back to what the original loan interest rate was and 8 years for it to hit the maximum interest rate allowed. So I am fortunate and I am blessed.
3. Get rid of the parking space
I had a parking space with my apartment that has been pretty empty since I had to put my car out to pasture last year. I was stuck in a parking lease that I could not cancel. But now that my parking lease has ended that should be a savings of $175 a month.
4. Travel Less
I know I thought those words would never come out of my mouth but this summer I am traveling less. I didn’t go away for Memorial Day or 4th of July. I don’t have any major summer trips planned like I did last year when I went to India. I may do a girl’s trip to Mexico but for the most part I’m not going too far away.
5. Switch from Time Warner to Verizon Fios
Surprisingly I’m going to save about $20 to $25 a month on Fios. I’m going to have cable on 2 TV’s versus 1, more premium channels because I have none and FINALLY I’m going to have wireless setup in my apartment.
6. Work my hustles
I’m actually taking July and August off from my regular side hustle of teaching. But I have another not as lucrative side hustle that pays about $100 a month. Not a lot but it’s better than nothing.
So total I’ll be saving at least $225 a month.
Type A - Workaholic 