It's Monday again, and this time it's smack on the 1st of the month. Thanks to the news earlier this month that I was able to realize a personal goal of dropping the PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) on my home, which by the way is a completion of one of my New Year's Resolutions, I get the satisfaction this month of applying the old amount of $200/month that used to go to private mortgage insurance to instead go to the Additional Principle column on the online payment center of our mortgage manager, Quicken Loans, that normally goes unchecked and left blank.

Big thanks goes to a local realtor in my town of Beacon, Daniel Aubry, who encouraged me to make the call to cut ties with the PMI while I was interviewing him for one of his branded content articles regarding a clever real estate deal he wanted to highlight in my local publication A Little Beacon Blog. Daniel encouraged me to call the mortgage manager instead of waiting for them to call me to offer to check on if we were eligible or not for removal of the PMI. Thanks also to our community's hot real estate market, that drove our home value up above what we originally got the loan for, in order to make this PMI cut possible.

But Wait, There's More!

In addition to the monthly savings that will be applied to the principle of the loan, Quicken Loans cut us a refund check for the PMI since the time of them turning it off. The $75 was a welcome addition that basically goes straight to groceries, or a kid's after school programming.

Stick To The Savings

The savings, or rather, the application of this savings to a large amount of debt, isn't something that happens automatically. We need to check the box and fill in the amount each month, instead of opting for a lower monthly mortgage amount. I am so eager to live in a mortgage-free home, and remove that large sum of debt from my credit report, that this should be easy to keep.

Easy To Use Daily Credit Checker

Speaking of credit report, several of the banks are hooked up with credit score companies to provide you with a daily snapshot of your credit score. I have been using the free one that suddenly appeared with my CapitalOne Spark Business account. It gives me the history of my credit score, and a running tab of which accounts are open and what their balances are. The layout of it is great. Very easy to use and look at. I used to get this via whoever Suze Orman recommended, and even once bought her own credit report package. CapitalOne's is comparable to hers, where the layout is great and information easy to access.

Looking forward to seeing what happens for your Money Monday for next week!