Hi,
I'd appreciate some advice/suggestions/face-punching on my situation:
My husband and I have decided to get serious about our mortgage by refinancing to a lower interest rate. Our mortgage balance is currently $313,000. Through extra payments, we are paying down $5,000 in principal each month. Our interest rate is higher than we'd like (5.625) but because there was a short sale on our street about 10 months ago for $250,000, we cannot refinance until either (1) a house in the neighborhood sells for considerably higher or (2) we pay down the balance. (We are not eligible for HARP because we refinanced in 2010 under HARP.) I think we can pay off about $60,000 in principal over the next year, which would get us down to refinancing territory. Is it worth suspending retirement contributions to accelerate this process? Is there something else I should consider other than simple aggressive payments?
Other relevant facts: we are 33 and 35 years old. My income is about $120,000 per year, and my husband is recently self-employed, but we anticipate income of around $100,000 in 2013. I currently save the maximum amount in my 401k, and my husband also plans to contribute to his retirement account (yet to be set up). We anticipate going to one income in the next year or so as we'd like to have a baby.
I'd appreciate any insights and am happy to provide more information if it would be helpful. I am a fairly new MMM reader and until a few months ago thought we were doing great with a 25% savings rate. We've improved drastically since then but are still learning.