After shopping around, I've found that the best loan deal I can get to refinance the house puts me at the same interest rate, with closing costs of $2,400. I hate how they fuck you with those closing costs. I think we paid $3,000 for the original loan, but that's still too much. My payment will be just a few dollars higher, which isn't horrible I guess.

On the positive side, my credit score is astronomically high. From what I've read, anything over 720 is gravy, and mine is 760. It's calculated in part by how much available credit you have, which seems counterintuitive to me since you could finance yourself to death in one day with all of that open credit, but I guess the banks think otherwise. I'm surprised my score was so high because I carry a lot of debt, but as a percentage of what's available (last check I've got like $50k at my disposal), it's small.

This makes me wonder what would have happened if I didn't get several accounts early on in college and allow them to keep raising my limits. If you don't open those accounts, you're going to be screwed in adulthood when you want to buy a car or a house. For the bad rap that credit cards get, they're obviously a critical tool in building credit. You learn something every day.