Dear David and friends,
I would like to thank you for motivating me and giving me the confidence to take the plunge to buy a house!
Our story begins in mid, 2007 when a friend lent me a copy of the Automatic Millionaire e-book, I had listened to it a few times but didn’t really do anything with it, but it did get me thinking.
In late 2007 when Cindy, the 3 boys and I were driving from Ontario (Canada) home to Alberta about 3100 kms or 1926 miles, a lot of time to chat about things. We decided among other things that we were going to quit smoking, I was smoking from 1 ½ to 2 packs a day and she was smoking almost a pack a day at $12.50 a pack that’s a pretty big latte factor right there.
The other thing we decided was that we wanted to buy a house within the next 5 years, I had no clue how we were going to do that, where to start or what to do, we were renting a house for the past 4 years for $1500 per month plus utilities of about $350 per month so if we were going to buy a house we had to cut our expenses big time.
On April 5th 2008 Cindy and I both quit smoking and have not smoked since. I started bicycling and listening to of course the Automatic Millionaire while riding. It wasn’t long before the wheels starting turning about how I could save enough for a down payment plus keep all my bills in good standing, by quitting smoking we gave ourselves more than $1000 per month extra, in the savings account it went, I then cut our TV satellite down to just basic service to about $35 a month from about $120 with all the premium channels we had, stopped using our credit cards, did not make any new purchases, so on and on it went until we were able to save $1500 per month every month for 19 months enough to cover our down payment and lawyer fees.
On October 15th 2009 we signed our purchase agreement with a local builder for our brand new $469,900 two story 2540 Sq. ft house in North Calgary, it was completed and we moved in on April 19, 2010, as per your instruction we went with an accelerated bi-weekly mortgage payment plan and we have been loving it ever since. With the mortgage and taxes it is really not that much more than we were paying for rent.
I am almost sure that if I had not listened to the Automatic Millionaire over and over (I’m guessing I listened to it at least ten times.) We would be still living in that same rented house that someone else is reaping the benefits off.
Again, I say thank you for the kick in the butt and I am proof that your system works if one just applies it and start off with putting even a few dollars away at a time it’s amazing how fast it added up for us. I am not a millionaire yet but with the housing market in Calgary booming I am half way there!
PS: My wife and I both have our Company RRSP (401k) contributions maxed out for a total of $11,800 per year for both of us and our employers match our contributions, this is money that comes right off the top we don’t see it, so we don’t miss it. (And its tax free, I love this game!)
PS: PS: Now we are looking into buying a two bedroom condo in this area that we live so that we can rent it out. They are going for about $250,000, we gave ourselves one year for this new rental endeavor I’ll keep you posted.
About us:
I am a Technical Sales Representative for an equipment manufacturer and supplier to the oil and gas industry, Cindy is an Executive Admin Secretary in Government, our 3 boys Geoff, Steven and Matthew are all in various stages of completing University. Oh yes I almost forgot we have been married for 30 years tomorrow (August 21st).
We started late but…
Your new friends,