I couldn't help myself.  I did something I know is irrational.

When checking my mortgage balance this morning, I saw that $43.24 remained to the next thousand-dollar incrediment.

I had over $13 in rewards on a credit card at the same bank, so I applied $13.24 to the mortgage and then paid an additional $30 from cash to get the mortgage balance to $27,000 once all the payments settle.

I also have $8,500 on a HELOC, so total housing related debt is $35,500.

The HELOC interest rate is more than twice the rate on the mortgage, so I should have applied the extra payments to the HELOC, but I couldn't help myself--round numbers have a definite allure.

It's how I've accelerated my mortgage payments ever since first taking it out in 2005.  I've ALWAYS rounded the balance down to the next hundred by paying extra towards principal--until interest rates skyrocketed, and then I rounded the mortgage payments down to the nearest $10 so I could apply more payments to my debts that have higher rates.

Current TOTAL debt is about $61,500 with about $14,300 (including that HELOC) at rates over 6%.

The higher interest debt will be refinanced in October at lower (not low, but lower) rates.  I'm assuming that the Fed will cut rates in September, which should lead to a bit of a drop in loan rates, and I have more "hard checks" on my credit score than I should due to some credit card fraud I experienced in February.  I caught the fraud right away and notified the agencies, but none of them have taken the false "hard checks" of my score.  I did have a "real" hard check from last October, which should roll off mid-month and improve my score a bit more.  If I had time and energy to deal with the credit card agencies, I would, but I don't.  It's just easier to wait and have a plan.

My goal at the beginning of the year for year-end debt was $60k.  I should actually get there either this month or next.

Then projected year-end debt is $55k as long as there are no more major repairs or appliance replacements.

Then January should lead to further decreases still due to a bonus, plus I apply my beneficiary Required Minimum Distribution from my inherited IRAs to debt reduction at that time.

My total debt (which maxed out at $108k in 2011, the year my mother died and I was both employed only part-time AND flying out frequently from PA to CA) hovered at around $90k for several years, and only recently started decreasing significantly once my salary increased to a certain level.  Debt reduction improved more (unfortunately) with the lack of pet expenses since last May.  There WILL be cats again, but in the interim, it is helpful to see my total debts going down, and especially down to a small fraction of my assets.