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I'm not usually one to share gobs of personal financial information, but knowing (for the most part) who's reading my blog, I feel very safe. So, here's what we did today!

Greg and I went to the bank that has our mortgage. We had them run numbers for a 15 year and 30 year fixed mortgage refinance. The average nation-wide interest rate is actually a little lower than what we're paying currently. The rates quoted by our mortgage holder were somewhat higher, so I need to shop around for sure.

The good news is that after working all the numbers and following Crown Ministries guidelines, we can get a $50K loan added to our current loan, pay off the truck and add what we're paying for that to the principle of this new loan, and pay what we're paying now for only 2 1/2 years more (which wold be a total of 9 years) and our house and remodel will be paid off completely! This looks do-able! Now the question will be, how much of the remodel labor can we do ourselves without messing it up, to keep the costs under $50K?

Today Greg showed me his plan to re-landscape the backyard. He's excited about doing it and so am I. We found a pretty waterfall wall at a model home he fell in love with and I loved the matching stone bench seats, so he had both in his plan. He also added a fenced in area that would be concrete to keep the dogs in if we had company and needed them contained. He added grass and planters. I didn't see grass, I saw a pool, but that will probably be over 9 years out at this point I'm thinking, maybe less, as we'll have more money when Kristen gets out of Turlock Christian in 2 1/2 years.

I would be foolish if I didn't give full credit for our financial position to God, our only provider. As I've written before, he's pulled money out of some very unlikely places when I've needed it and has given us wisdom in our decisions along the way.