Half the Time, Double the Faith: God's Plan to Help Me Cut My 30 Year Mortgage in Half

Now that I’m on the other side of 50, I’m constantly looking for ways for my husband and me to ‘be gainfully unemployed. Yes, | said unemployed. You see, the goal is to be debt-free in the next 10 years so: we can both stop working by age 62. It’s anambitious goal—especially since we bought a house five years ago with a 30-year mortgage—but that’s the goal nonetheless.

When I retired last December after 28 years in public education, | knew my working days weren’t over. | planned to pick up a part-time job to supplement my pension. My husband planned to keep operating his trucking business until either: A) we won the lottery B) we were debt-free or C) God told him what Plan C was. We were in pretty good financial shape—no credit card debt, two years left on a car note, and a rental property that paid for itself. Once our house was paid for we could comfortably live off Social Security, our investments, and my pension. But that wasn’t set to happen until 2050. Our debt-free goal did not match our mortgage statement. At the rate we were going, we’d be in our 70s before wewere debt-free. That was not the plan. How could we make 25 years of mortgage payments in just 10 years? Proverbs 16:9 says, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. We had a goal, but we did not have a plan.

We left God out of our plan—and that was a critical mistake. If this crazy, ambitious goal was to become a reality, we needed God to plan our steps. One thing about God: He doesn’t just hand out blueprints. He requires obedience first. Obedience paves the way to revelation. We had to take the first step before God would reveal the next one. The first step came two months after I retired.

| searched for part-time jobs that fit my skill set, but all my matches were customer service (too stressful), sales (not my cup of tea), or school-based roles (which I wanted a break from). I still had a passion for education, but I didn’t want the stress that came along with it. Little did I know, God would direct me to a job that included all the things I loved about being a principal—with none of the stress (and a pretty decent paycheck). I applied, interviewed, and got the job within a few weeks. Step one was complete. Now God would reveal step 2.

My husband owns a trucking business that has always done well. But over the past few years, rising fuel costs and sharp drops in freight rates cut profits. To make up for the losses, he spent more days on the road and down-sized the business. Trucking companies were shutting down left and right and he wondered if he should do the same. But God said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”(Psalm 46:10). He listened. And slowly but surely, gas prices went down and freight rates went up. His business survived the storm. Step two - done! Who knew God would deliver the next step by mail?

A feeling of dread came over me as I stared at the envelope. It was the renewal for our homwowner's insurance. Last year our rate went up $100/month. I silently prayed Please God , let it not go up again. Déjavu—another $100 increase. I dialed my insurance broker, ready to read him the riot act.

“This is the second year in a row our rate has increased by $100 a month. What’s going on?”

He said his phone was ringing off the hook with angry customers asking the same question.

“Rates skyrocketed all across the state,” he said. “I can get some quotes from other carriers, but they’ll likely be similar.”

He was right—they were all about the same. Ugh! More money out of our household.

“There is another way you can lower your rate,” he said.

My ears perked up immediately.

“lf you increase your deductible, your payment will go down.”

“Really?” I said. “The deductible makes that big of a difference?”

I'd never thought about increasing the deductible—and no agent had ever suggested it.

"I'll pull rates for deductibles of $1,500, $2,00and $2,500 so you can see the difference.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

The quotes were in my email the next day. The renewal I received in the mail had a $1,000 deductible at a rate of $6,700/year. A new policy with a $2,500 deductible was only$3,100/year—$3,600 less! Our mortgage payment would go down $300/month instead of up $100/month. I couldn’t believe it.

I immediately called my agent and asked him to increase the deductible.

“You know you can do the same thing with your car insurance, ”he said.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Between the homeowners insurance and the car insurance, we were going to save $5,400 a year. Step three — check! God was showing us ways to save money that could be used to pay off our mortgage early. He made us see that spendng less was a way to save the money we needed to pay off the mortgage early.

This was just the beginning of our spend less to save more journey. There had to be other ways we could save money to send toward the mortgage principal. | went through our finances with a fine-tooth comb: every financial account, utility bill, subscription, and spending habit. | itemized every dollar we spent over the course of 30 days and watched the patterns emerge.

Too much money was being spent on eating out and Amazon orders. We were also spending a good bit on our new furry friend. Dog food, toys, vet visits and grooming were new expense we didn’t budget for. I looked at each item on the spreadsheet and thought, “How can we spend less?” God answered.

I disconnected my American Express from my Amazon account and connected my Cash App card instead. This forced me to pay cash for Amazon orders and track my spending. We ate out less and I started grooming our dog myself — you can learn anything on YouTube. I compared prices on household goods, toiletries, and prescriptions to see if I could get them cheaper. Switching thyroid medicine from the name brand to the generic saved me $115 a month. What else could we save monry on?

I checked rates for our electricity and enrolled in the flat rate plan — no more surprise $300 AC bills. Then I switched from cable to YouTube TV. That saved us $40/month —who needs 300 channels anyway? We moved our regular savings account (<1% interest) to a CD (5% interest). The savings were adding up fast—but would it be enough to reach our debt-free goal in 10 years? Only one way to find out.

I found an online mortgage calculator and entered our mortgage balance, interest rate, and estimated payoff date. I hit the calculate button and let the computer do its magic.

Glory be to God! The money we were saving by spending less every month was more than enough to cover the extra payments needed to pay off our house in 10 years. Half the time — double the faith. Obedience definitely paves the way to revelation.