A little bit debt free... or debt unburdened?

Today is the closing day for our refinanced mortgage. By taking advantage of lower interest rates, Mr W and I were able to refinance our mortgage, add $45k to the mortgage for debt repayment, and: 1) not increase our semi-monthly payment OR 2) not increase our mortgage term. I played the banks fairly hard I think. Once approved by ING at 4.34% I called CIBC where our mortgage resides to see if they could get us a better deal. They came back at 4.3%, which ING countered at 4.29%. In the end, ING was far superior in response time and customer service. CIBC simply dropped the ball - taking several days to get back to me with an offer, whereas ING responded within hours of my emails. ING also allows to pay back up to 25% a year without penalty, a huge advantage for us to eventually start paying our mortgage down.

So while we are obviously not debt free, the debt burden has been lessened. Our monthly debt repayments have been reduced by hundreds of dollars, and we are saving thousands and thousands on interest. We still have our government student loans to pay off, which now seems achievable. This will be our first debt goal. Our mortgage has amount is still considerably below assessed value too, just in case things start to fall in this neighbourhood. In 2008 our house still increased in value by 6%- a slow down, but not a downturn yet.

Ahhhh spring. Time for reworking the finances :) Mr W is also away welding (although it is -32 with windchill in Prince George- Nancy I guess everywhere slightly north is cold too? Especially compared to the south coast!) which he often does in the spring. My bulbs are up, and yes, today we have a snowfall warning!

Since I have been posting finances lately, and little about the little boy, here is a recent pic from one of our geocaching adventures.