PMI

In New Jersey, when you buy a house and get a mortgage, you have to have Private Mortgage Insurance if you've put down less than 20% of the purchase price. It's supposed to insure the mortgage company against losing the money on the loan if you default. For us, that amounts to almost $80 per month.

Luckily, you can get your PMI removed if your property value has increased considerably, which ours has. We bought our house for $262K, and it is easily worth 320K today. We only need a valuation of $310K to get our PMI removed. So, come October (you have to have a 2 year payment history with the bank) we'll be getting a BPO (Broker's Professional Opinion, not quite an appraisal but similar) and hopefully having our PMI removed.

That's an additional $80 per month that can go towards principal!