Marvin and Nancy were interested in having a guaranteed debt-free date.  They were very motivated to make their plan work, because they wanted to retire and enjoy spending time with family and traveling.

The original plan showed a debt-free date of 11.4 years, but with help from Nine Year Mortgage, Marvin and Nancy have reduced this to 9.7 years.  They have employed 3 major strategies:

1. They refinanced their home mortgage into a 15 year loan with a 2.875% interest rate, replacing their existing 30 year mortgage which was at 5.00%.  The payments were actually lower on the new loan.
2. Nine Year Mortgage showed them how they could move about $25,000 of credit card and vehicle debt onto a 0% promotional rate credit card for 18 months.  Some of these balance transfers were previously at interest rates in excess of 12%.
3. They sat down and evaluated their spending with their Plan Coordinator at Nine Year Mortgage.  Based on these meetings, they were able to find an additional $250/month through imposing more discipline on their lifestyle and eliminating waste.  They raised the amount going into the plan each month by this amount, which encourages them to stick with their budget.

 What thrilled Marvin and Nancy is the fact that with every change in the plan, the guarantee on the debt-free date was updated.  They know that as long as they make their monthly payment, they can “set it and forget it”.  The plan is automated and will execute perfectly.

Nancy recently said this is the first time they have felt that their money is working FOR THEM, rather than the other way around.  They feel that they are on OFFENSE with their money, not on defense.  This is wonderful because they now see a debt-free retirement, just as they had dreamed.  Their current focus is on finding ways to improve their debt-free date even further, and they are so encouraged that they now believe anything is possible.

John and Suzie wanted to gain control over their money.  They knew that on paper it was possible, but they never seemed to make it come true.

They sat down and realized that they had refinanced their home three times since they bought it in 1996.

Sixteen years after making their first home purchase, they had a bigger mortgage than ever, and still 27 years to go in order to pay it off.

Now they were even considering doing a 4th refinance, and starting over again. At this point they wondered if they would ever get out of debt.

Upon serious reflection, the $38,000 in additional mortgage debt on their house represented the amount they had overspent in the last 16 years.

That was about $200/month, every month, for nearly 200 months. It was a bad habit, but they finally admitted that weren’t able to control it.

So, they reached out to Nine Year Mortgage and found the solution they needed.

The two things that they have told us they now enjoy in their financial lives are the following:

1) “Now we have a path that is guaranteed.  We know we can beat this debt, and we refuse to ruin the program by overspending.”

2) “Now we work together on our money.  Before Nine Year Mortgage, we realize that we were operating as 2 separate individuals, and not working together.  Money is such a huge enemy–a threat to our emotional and family well being, that we have to stand shoulder to shoulder and defend ourselves against it on a daily basis.”

Thanks to Nine Year Mortgage, these 2 blessings are coming true.  They tell us over and over “If it wasn’t for this, we’d still be on the same path.”

Yes, it was always POSSIBLE, but it would never have ACTUALLY HAPPENED without help.  Nine Year Mortgage is the help they needed.

Two of our recent clients live in the Midwest.  They enrolled in June 2012.

The biggest thing they got out of the plan is that they now believe it’s going to be possible for them to retire.  Before this, they felt like a door that was going back and forth on its hinges and never getting anywhere.

The wife was so depressed about the fact that they never seemed to get anywhere that she was moping around the house.  Now that she sees light at the end of the tunnel, she has felt a burst of energy.  She canned over 300 quarts of vegetables and fruit in the past 60 days.

Both the spouses have taken the challenge to put a $10 bill into a Tupperware container in the kitchen each week.  That’s $20/week between the 2 of them, or $1000 per year.

Each month they watch it build up, and when it gets to $100, they treat themselves for a little inexpensive date, and then put the remainder into the bank for emergency savings.  They never had such an account before.

What is dawning on them is that they can control their money, and have it work for them, and not the other way around.  It’s not the $10/week that each one saves, but the fact that they are doing something proactive and dominating their spending.

They believe it’s possible.  They are united in their hopes and they are enthusiastic.  They are working together as a team which is something they did not do very well before they met us.  Their goal is to beat the debt-free date by a year, and they are 110% committed to the program.

Don and Marlene took their plan by the horns and decided to find every way they could to accelerate their debt-free date with 9 Year Mortgage.  The first thing we did was transfer some credit card balances to 0% accounts.  This allowed us to improve their plan performance by 3 months while simultaneously lowering their plan payment by $150/month.

Now we have done 2 more coaching lessons and they are very excited.  Don hadn’t been able to contribute the full amount into his 401(k) that his employer would match. Money was simply too tight. He was putting in 3% and they would match 3%. We found out that if he put in another 3% they would match half of it. That’s a 50% return on investment. He needed to get that extra 3%, but he hadn’t been able to afford it. On Don’s salary, the matching 1.5% per year was about $1000 that he was leaving on the table.

By reducing the plan payment $150 and by them finding another $100/month of savings through evaluation of their spending habits, we got things to where they could afford to contribute the full 6% towards retirement.  In fact, they even have found enough to start up an emergency savings account, which they never previously had.  It was mostly a matter of priorities and discipline, and being smart about their money.

These simple steps have transformed their outlook on spending and paying off debt. They have analyzed what their retirement will be like in 7 years (they are both in their early 50s) and they feel very confident and thankful to 9 Year Mortgage for the improvements they have accomplished so far in their financial lives.

Now we are looking at a mortgage refinance to make the plan run even faster. Enrolling with 9 Year Mortgage was the catalyst to make all these changes and get them moving forward. They are very happy.

The Richards had a goal to volunteer as missionaries for their church.  In order to do this, they needed to be out of debt and in control of their finances.  They were in their early 50s, and Jim could retire with a decent pension at age 63.  His wife would take early Social Security, and if they had no debt, they figured that financially they could make it happen.

The one problem remaining was how to get out of debt in 10 years or less?  They had about $36,000 of debt spread over cars and credit cards, and a mortgage of $189,000 that was 24 years away from being paid in full.  They tried to pay a little bit here and a little bit there as extra principal, but it was hit and miss, and there was no system to their approach and little progress.

Here is how Jim described his reasoning, “When I learned that I could reach our goals on the same money we were paying right now towards our debt, I had a wave of hope roll over me.

When the plan showed me that our effective interest rate was 2.92%, I was jumping up and down with excitement.  I felt as if an angel investor had come into my life.  He said, ‘I’ll pay off all your debt.  I’ll become your single creditor.  You pay all your bills to me from now on.'”

“What were the repayment terms of this new angel investor?  Here is what they were; 10.2 years, which is the length of the plan, at 2.92%, which is the effective interest rate.  The monthly payment is exactly what I was paying towards my debt before.  And the closing costs?  They are the enrollment fee, already figured into the plan.  Who wouldn’t take that deal?”

I can’t tell you how excited Jim is with his 9 Year Mortgage Financial Plan, and now his goal is to beat the plan’s debt-free date by a year, so he and his wife can leave for their church service a year earlier than planned.  They are focused on that goal, and will not let up until they get there.

When Miriam and her husband Mitch enrolled with 9 Year Mortgage they had an unusual situation in that they wanted to purchase their dream home, but they were fighting to clean up their credit which was damaged by the hospital when Mitch had a water skiing accident.  The bills were sent out in the names of two different people with two different addresses.  They paid the bills they knew about, but the “mystery bills” were not paid until they had gone to collections and finally found their way back to Mitch.

The couple had tried every means possible to have those collection accounts taken off of their credit report, but finally entered into a payment arrangement for the principal balance (fees and interest were waived) with a promise that the collections accounts would be removed from their credit once the balances were paid in full.

9 Year Mortgage helped Mitch and Miriam to see the value of borrowing from a retirement account to clean up the mess immediately.  The new three year medical loan became a new account in their financial plan, and was accelerated down to 2.2 years.  Now their credit score is coming back immediately rather than in three years, and Mitch and Miriam are hoping they can purchase their house this coming winter or spring, before interest rates go up, and while property values are still low.

They just needed someone to help them see what options were available, and to evaluate the impact of those choices on their overall financial picture.  9 Year Mortgage helped them to take action and set up a plan, and gave them hope that they could move forward.  They had been so discouraged at how credit scores and identity theft had ruined their financial lives that they were simply going from day to day, without hope.  Now things are different, and they thank 9 Year Mortgage for letting the light shine in.