One question.. don't have much time to answer before turning into pumpkin. Are your retirement accounts (401K, profit share, etc) fully funded?
ucodegen,
To answer #1,#2,#3, yes I'm aware of that they aren't keeping up with mortgage costs, opportunity cost investing elseware with better yield, although I need some safety cushion at least partly, and I'm fully aware of the dollar-peso issue.
….Just trying to figure out out to further reduce my mortgage costs and/or reduce my taxes. Being wage slaves doesn't really help the later. And currently, i(we) are hitting some itemized deduction phase out limits + we ALWAYS get hit with AMT, so not all the mortgage interest and property tax we pay on the mortgage is being fully utilized in the itemized deduction. Notably, while Property Tax is deductible under normal tax calculations, it is not part of AMT tax calculations. So we're losing roughly $12k in deductions under AMT tax calculations. Ironically, using a tax product, I played with some numbers. If I paid more interest expenses in my primary mortgage, I wouldn't hit AMT and my effective tax rate would drop even lower, even with the itemized deduction phase out. (the deduction would be reduced, but not completely phased out).
Yes, both my wife and I max out the 401k, and ESPP at both respective companies, and there is no other pension plan to contribute. With the recent volatility in the market, the remaining income currently is distributed roughly: $1000/month into a basket of domestic+international index and some specialty funds, $500/month into a 529 plan for a kid, and about $3000/month into a short term reserve. The rest goes into a mortgage+slightly extra principle payments roughly $4000/month ($3600 is roughly the fixed payment, with about add additional $400/month principle on top of that), $1100/month for proptax+hoa+insurance+mellrouse, $1500/month for child daycare expenses, and roughly $500/month in misc expenses. No other outstanding loans exist, though everything possible that can be charged to credit cards without a processing fee is charged to cards that have some rebate program, and each card has 0 balance end of each month.
This doesn't account for any bonus we get, which usually is used only for vacation and additional drips into index/fund basket + short term reserves. Also, December expenses are are higher than average, for obvious reasons. So gifts and charitable contributions usually comes out of the bonus pile, if any. Bonuses have fluctuated in the past, stabilizing recently .Nevertheless, neither of us count on it. We figure no bonus ==> no vacation requiring travel, limited gift giving, and limited charitable contributions.
