How do you eat an elephant?

Well, Mrs. Brows and I finally succeeded in refinancing our home.  It was a perilous endeavor, but we finally made it happen.

One of our biggest challenges was getting enough LTV to meet the lender’s guidelines.  While we were not underwater, basically our eyeballs were the only thing above water, and apparently they prefer your nose and/or mouth to be above the water… so we figured it out and life went on.

(Except for the fact that we were lied to – to the tune of $400 – and cheated – to the tune of $750 – but I’ll leave that rant for another time – suffice it to say, scratch Wells Fargo off your  list of preferred lenders.)

This post, however, is about that new balance – that beautiful new balance – that stands between us and owning our home.

One of the motivators for refinancing was to lower our rate and payment such that we could contribute more principal toward the mortgage.  Our payment went down about 25%, and the plan is to keep paying the same amount (actually slightly more) and apply the overage to principal, thus paying off our house faster.  The calculation is that our current 30 year loan could be paid off in 16 years at that rate.

But here’s my problem – 16 years sounds like a very long time!  I mean, WEJr will be driving by then!!!

I know all you parentals with teenagers driving will look at me and laugh – thinking to yourself, “Yes, that time sure does fly by!”  And I agree, it probably does.  But it still seems like a very long time to be paying off four walls and a roof.

Which leads me to the title of this post – that old adage, “How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.”

Well, here’s my problem, I don’t like small bites.  I don’t want to take 30 years to eat this elephant.  I want to take huge bites.  Even though it will hurt going down and maybe cause some esophageal tearing, it sure will feel better to see that number go down but a nice CHUNK, not a small bite.

I have the same problem with savings.  I like to see the numbers going up fast, by large chunks rather than going up incrementally by small bites.  It’s just my personality.

What do you think?  Am I just crazy?  Should I just relax, “set it and forget it”*, and let the good times roll?

* Gosh I love Ron Popeil!