Musings on a Small Life

I saw the bank mortgage person yesterday (rescheduled from Wednesday). They'd be only too happy to up-size my mortgage. She looked at what I have left to pay on my current mortgage, used a low resale figure for my townhouse (for the example), did her calculations based on today's rate, and came up with a payment that would, in effect, be equal to or slightly less than what I'm paying now (taking into account my condo fees). However, she did it based on an amortization period of 25 years. So it's great to know that I do have options from the bank's perspective, even though I have no intention of up-sizing a mortgage (at least not that much) and paying it till I'm 77. I won't be able to manage a mortgage/rent payment on my pension, even if I manage to stick it out here till 65. Interestingly, the bank (at least not my bank) will not give me a standard mortgage on any home less than 850 square feet. Apparently they look at resale-ability and small hom...

It's been a typical Monday, what with my coffee-spilling this morning, dropping Toby's kibble all over my front step at 4AM (in the dark of course), miscellaneous small "challenges" to get out the door to catch the 6:15AM bus, then not being able to get down the step and away from Toby, who was in the mood for cuddles, plus dropping one of the Easter cards I'm sending to a family member in Toby's water dish. Oh, and putting my foot in my mouth (in a small-ish way, I do hope) at meeting this morning (not just our staff, we're part of a larger group), and so on. Just a series of trivial things that provided a bit of normal silly Monday frustration. Including being back in long johns due to the abnormally cold temps today and tomorrow. Toby, by the way, has had a sampling of shredded and chunky food in gravy and now refuses to touch the paté he's been eating for the past three years. Yep, he's now become well-fed and finicky, a far cry from t...

Getting close to Friday, yay! Still freezing weather, boo! So I guess I'll play catch-up on the "boring business of life." My bank currently is offering a mortgage rate of 2.99%, fixed for five years. I emailed my mortgage advisor to ask if it was worth breaking my existing mortgage, but she said no, as the penalty would be $4400. Yikes. However, she can do a blended rate, extend the term back out to five years (I have three years left on it), and shave 0.55% from my existing rate, thus cutting my amortization period by 9 months. Not a huge savings, but it's a win-win as far as I'm concerned, and it is my money after all. Anything I can save is great. As it is, I'll be in my early 60s before it's paid off. I thought about remortgaging to clear my ever-present credit card debt, but decided it's not worth it. Every time I clear my debt I run it up again within months. So I'll keep what I owe and pick away at it. It's my fault anyway. I had ho...