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Even though my husband and I have both separate accounts (along with a few joint accounts) we talk all the time about our goals and plans, and ask each other’s opinions. And we have extremely similar financial outlooks, hopes, and dreams, so that’s nice.

Our money conversations usually happen on the spur of the moment. I thought I’d post one of our recent discussions here. I’m super happy about the mid-term plan we came up with. Here is the (slightly edited) conversation we had over instant messenger about a couple of financial goals (saving money and paying off the mortgage):

him: I may be able to save $500 a paycheck to get to my savings goal.

him: I have my cell phone bill, but thats only $45 a month
so it should be somewhat easy to save if I don’t spend much.

me: exactly :)

him: so I could be close to my goal, if not make it within a year.

me: yes i think you could :)

him: If I send my “extra” two checks also and the $500
a paycheck that’s $14370.

me: cool

him: It would be almost $20,000 exactly from my balance as of right now.
But it would take a year to get to my goal.

me: but that’s good

me: so how about we spend a year saving like crazy, then take a break
for a couple of months and buy stuff, then throw money at the mortgage
account like it’s going out of style

me: i’m willing to try the focusing method instead of using my normal
“do-everything-at-once” method

him: but that does not take into account car insurance or other stuff that
happens, like vacation, etc

me: well our vacations will already be paid for, except for spending money
and insurance is pretty cheap

him: And if I really buckle down and not spend except for the
essentials, I’ll be able to build up my checking
account balance for any out of the ordinary expense. That way I don’t
have to reduce what I send to savings.

me: i think you can do it

me: can you imagine what it will be like to have money in the bank and
a paid-for house?
when the total bills every month are phone, water, electricity,
groceries, gas, and insurance?
and that’s *it*?

him: we could certainly travel a lot more then, ;)

him: and I would not be stressed out about my savings goal.

me: and i would feel pretty safe money-wise

him: so you want to pay off the mortgage early?

me: i want to pile up the money to do so so that we could just write a
check if things are still ok here in the next few years

me: and meanwhile just leave it in the bank, make the payments from that
(after we get enough to pay it off)

me: especially with our lower interest rate, we’d pretty much be breaking even

him: good idea

me: so we have…
1. save for a year ($20,000 each)
2. take a short break & buy some stuff
3. throw money at mortgage account til the balance equals our
remaining mortgage amount
4. be free!

And just like that, 3-4 years til financial freedom. I’m so happy :)