Total Foil Count: 3,750
Today we are celebrating the fact that I have been able to remove Escrow from my Mortgage. When you buy a house you get a mortgage. In that mortgage they have this thing called escrow. Escrow consists of PMI, Taxes, and Insurance for the property (at least where I live). So in the end your mortgage consists the principle payment, the interest you need to pay for the privilege of having a mortgage, and this escrow account.
Escrow will get added to your mortgage automatically if you do not put 20% or more down for the down payment. You will also get charged PMI. PMI is like an additional payment to the mortgage company because they know you do not have a 20% down payment, so they are "trying to protect" themselves from something besides being able to take your home if you do not pay.
The way Escrow works is, you get to pay PMI to the mortgage company but you also need to pay your home owner insurance and property taxes through the mortgage company as well. Home owner insurance is paid out 1 time a year and it is a pretty big number. Then property taxes is also another large number that gets paid out 2 times a year. All three of those payments will come out of your Escrow account, and the mortgage folks are glad to do that for you. And since you paid less than 20% as a down payment, you need to use them to pay those.
A lot of people think that is just an awesome thing for them to do for you. Not only will you just pay the mortgage, but they will also pay your other bills for you?! But like I mentioned in my last blog, it is all about the small moves that you can get ahead. Those cash back rewards and interest payments by buying things from a savings account using interest free financing, but paying it off slowly while you have the full payment in savings gaining interest is what I am talking about. This is just another small move to take.
So by removing Escrow from my mortgage, then all I will be paying is the principle payment along with the interest payment. Next, I take all that money that I would have paid to my mortgage for the Escrow account and I put that into savings. Since the insurance gets paid out once a year, and the taxes will get paid out twice, that leaves a lot of months to be gaining interest while I wait to pay those bills. This is just another small steps in making more money for family in trying to secure my financial future, and money to use to buy Magic cards.
I am not sure how much I will be making on that saving account, but it will increase the total amount of my savings account, which is also leverage to be able to make the quick moves that I am trying to do in order to take advantage of some situations from time to time.
I know, some people might think it to be silly to put that kind of stress on yourself, and have to worry about more things in life, but those are the small little moves that get you ahead in life. It is the same reason I really love getting 0.019 shares from a Dividend Reinvestment off of some stocks that I own that I get to reinvest back into my position with the knowledge that I will get 0.020 shares the next quarter.
I might go into this at some time, but to prove my point a little bit more back in 2008 I started down the path of DRIP investing and in that year I made $538.83 for free off the Dividends. Last year that DRIP ended up being $6,924.25 for free. I know that seems silly, and who really cares, but in my eyes I made almost $7000 for doing nothing but buying some shares of stock that pay a dividend and let them sit there and reinvest that dividend back into itself for free.
It is all about those little steps.
My hope is that with all these little steps I will be able to take my investments and put them into more dividend paying stocks along with stashing some of them into Municipal Bonds and try and live as tax free as I can. But I can get into that in a later blog, this one is about the Escrow account.
So to celebrate I decided to make a little investment into War of the Spark.
I am just going to come out and say it now, this set is going to be just like Kaladesh and Aether Revolt. Like Ixalan or Eldritch Moon. I am going to take a little bit of cash and invest it into some sealed product.
Here is the first batch of boxes I picked up, and I have some more that should be coming in as soon as my FLGS can get them in, but I am going to say that this set is going to be one of those sets that people look back on with a smile. It will be one that they wish they can find a box to buy for drafting or collecting. This is going to be another Dominaria. People will want to experience this set well after they stop printing it. I almost want to say that WoTC are going to stop the print on this set early just to mess with the investors. We will see, but I am marking this down as one of my Spec's and going to pick up a bunch.
I can see the value not only in the rare cards, but the uncommon and common cards. And like Ixalan, this set has some good land cards, and everyone needs land cards. I have some high hopes for this set to make a lasting impression with future players, and it will retain value moving forward, and I can make a little cash with this investment in this sealed product.
Now I am still only going to open a Mythic Edition box if I can get it, and 1 of my Bundles, following the plan to keep the least amount of extra cards around, and finishing up the playset after rotation. I figure this set will be opened a lot, and there will be a very large inventory out there to piece together my sets in 2 years.
I almost want to pick up more of these for some stupid reason, just cause I think they will be the last of their kind since there are not going to be anymore sparks.
I think the BaB promo is not too shabby either, and could be a good EDH card.
I also stopped by another LGS the other day and picked up these for a really good price. $0.50 a piece and I can't pass that up.
I got some trades in as well, so throwing them up for the ledger, but almost done with my Guild Kit land sets.
And then three more Player Promos. These have slowed down a bit, and now they are only trickling in, but I hope to get them complete soon.
So that is it. Just had to share my thoughts on the Escrow accounts, and how I am making small moves to reach my financial goals. It is just another step up those long stairs in the hopes to be able to retire at some point, and only focus on things I enjoy.
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