Baby Boy!

On Monday our baby boy arrived!

<3<3<3

They Don’t Stick To The Plan…Ever…Right?!

Our little girl turned 1 this Thursday. There was a chance of Irish twins (two kids within a year), but that deadline has passed.

My water broke thirteen hours ago…but still there are no contractions to be felt. Kids…they don’t stick to The Plan… 😉

Hopefully we’ll be able to welcome our little boy this weekend.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Swollen

Almost 38 weeks pregnant and swollen all over the place. I really hope to give birth within the next week or so.

We only bought the bare necessities (ha, now you’re stuck with the song in your head!) this time around. And, boy (pun intended), did we receive clothes from just about everywhere! The little kid now has so many outfits, I think he’ll outgrow many of them before having the chance to wear them.  It jus goes to show how much stuff there’s already there ready for you to use.

I’m so going to minimalise the house once I’m recovered from giving birth. Right now, it’s just physically impossible to start a project like that. I won’t have to go back to work until 26th of August, so there’s plenty of time to clear the clutter.

Life’s good!

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

Investigation On Changing Our Mortgage

The hubby suddenly started talking about how low mortgage interest rates are at the moment and how we might benefit from that. We have this weird mortgage (bankspaarhypotheek) where we keep the debt in full in order to take full advantage of even weirder Dutch tax rules. Yeah, we get a lot of money back from the government. I don’t understand why they stick with the rule…because everybody who takes advantage of this rule is actually screwing the government. Probably some bank lobby dudes who made sure this rule was incorporated…because the banks also benefit from this rule.

Anyway, we looked at changing our mortgage to an annuity with the idea of paying the damn thing off within the next 5 to 10 years. (LOVE!!!)

Our fine with the Tax Man will be around €4.000. (Yes, the government will fine us for not wanting to screw them over anymore!)

We asked the bank to calculate our fine. Yes, we need to pay a fine, because we signed up for our current interest rate till 2020. We got a letter…ouch….€25.000 in total in order to undo this mortgage. Obviously, we have no choice but to stick with the weird mortgage. In 2020 we’ll be able to make another big deposit in the savings part and we’ll bring down the term to 2030. That means we’ll have paid off our mortgage in 20 years instead of 30. Less than 20 years will imply a huge tax fine by the government…yeah, they really really really want us to take advantage of a tax rule that screws them over…and over….and over each year.

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser

P.s. Voor de Nederlanders: let dus op met je bankspaarhypotheek. Daar zit een fiscale klem op en de gevolgen van veranderen zijn echt niet grappig! Wij snappen niet dat de overheid de fiscale klem niet gewoon laat vallen.

Last Month’s Numbers

Februari 2015
Mortgage: 33.16% (0.16% increase)
Emergency fund: 302% 
Stash (=EF + stocks): 16.49% 
Savings rate this month: 32% (we had to pay taxes, the hubby bought a ticket for a music festival, we bought 4 safety gates for our stairs to protect the kid from falling down and prevent her from climbing up, we did a family photoshoot and we bought some stuff for the little boy who’ll be arriving shortly)
Savings rate this year: 30% (I am hoping for a 40% savings rate this year…but 50% would be awesome!)

Love,

Mrs EconoWiser