Reducing Monthly Expenses by Lowering Mortgage Rate & Insurance Costs

Looking for ways to drop your monthly expenses can be a huge headache. You don’t want to cut entertainment, or give up the things that you love so where can you save money. Last month hubby and I looked into refinancing our home. We’ve been living here almost 10 years and our mortgage rate was 5.75 which is considerably higher than the lowest rate mortgage company’s are offering at this time.

Refinancing Our Mortgage

We called up our mortgage company to get a few quote options for refinancing our home to lower monthly mortgage rate and payment as well as possibly dropping the amount of years we’d have to pay if that option was workable in our finances.  He sent over 2 quote options for us to look at. One was for 15 yr fixed at 2.875 and a 25 yr option at 3.50. showing 15 years  and also  25 years

The 15 year rate was for a little more than what we are paying now monthly  but we could cut 6 years off your term. We worried about taxes climbing in this area which increases the rate of our mortgage yearly. Although in the end we’d be done paying our mortgage sooner the rate at which taxes go up we’d be paying $2000 a month by the end of that term which is something we just can’t afford with having 4 kids to put through school.

The 25 year rate we’d reduce monthly payment by over  $200.00 month saving which certainly would help us out and if we wished we could make 1 payment extra each year (directly toward principle) we could still reduce the amount of years we would be paying in the end. Long term and currently this option is the best for us right now.

Insurance Quotes: Home Owners and Auto Insurance

Along with dropping our mortgage rate we also looked into reducing monthly expenses for Home Owners Insurance and Auto Insurance. What we discovered was that we’ve been over paying on our yearly Home Owners Insurance by $400 a year and $600 a year on Auto Insurance. By switching to another reputable company we not only gained coverage but we reduced our monthly payments. When comparing insurance rates with others I found that we were paying the highest rates. I should of checked into it sooner but the hassle of having to switched seemed to stress me out more than anything.   I’m so glad that we decided to take this leap and lower all of our major expenses saving money is going to be a snap this year.

By switching Home Owners and Auto Insurance together we saved $1000. We could put toward an extra mortgage payment or down on credit card debit. Now that’s something we can be happy about.

There are many ways to reduce your monthly expenses. This is just 3 of the steps we’ve taken in the last month. Taking these 3 steps have helped us reduces our out of pocket expenses. Now I need to look for more ways. Our Cable bill is next!

Do you have any tips?

Have you looked into lowering your mortgage rate or comparing your Insurance rates to others to save your self money? I highly recommend it.