Driveway at 9:31 a.m....


Driveway at 10:40 a.m...


Hey, I see asphalt!

Actually, the driveway's not completely done. You can't see the bottom where the driveway meets the road. The snow is really packed in there, knee-high, by snow plows. I'll save the back-breaking stuff for later today. Phew. We got about 9 or 10 inches.

I could've used my electric snow thrower, but I didn't. I like to reserve that for when i need to get to work and don't have time to shovel. But shoveling is good exercise and I saved on my electric bill by doing so.

I posed my favorite question on another forum at www.early-retirement.org. I like to ask it at least once a year (!) to see if changes in my situation might warrant different answers. The question is, should I pay off the balance on my 30-year, 6% fixed rate mortgage ($32,000) with money I have in taxable savings accounts.

Being unemployed, I can't refinance the loan, and I don't think it makes sense to pay closing costs on such a small balance. I have ample savings, but they're locked up in mutual funds which I'd be selling at a loss or small gain if I sold now. The only other liquid assets, in money markets, is money i need to supplement unemployment benefits and whatever freelance work i can muster, to live on til i find the next (and hopefully last) perm job of my career.

So anyway, the consensus was, don't pay it off now, wait til you're working again, with a small subset of people saying it won't make much difference now anyhow since we're talking saving $5K in mortgage loan interest if i paid it off now vs. in 4 more years.

I guess I'll take the middle road and plan to just double up my monthly mortgage payments when i get a perm job. This way, i won't have to take a possible loss on liquidated mutual funds. A big reason why I was revisiting this issue yet again was becus now, with monthly COBRA payments of $443 looming ahead, I'll experience a monthly shortfall of roughly $300 in income vs. expenses. That's assuming no income from freelance so maybe what i really need to focus on is hustling up more work. I've already examined every square inch of expenses and cut what could be cut.