Well, we just got our annual escrow statement. Looks like our monthly payment is going up by $73 per month starting in March. We are still okay because we budget an even $2,000 for our mortgage/escrow/extra principal payment so this still leaves us under that amount. Our credit union has our mortgage and they require that we have an escrow account... HOWEVER, the great thing is that the money sitting in escrow earns us, not the bank, interest. For 2007, we got a whopping $9.12 in interest for the escrow amount. Woo hoo... it's actually not too bad considering the small amount that gets deposited in there each month, I suppose. Anyway, the extra $73 per month is due to the tax on our house being "official" now... it was a new construction when we bought it so we had to guesstimate what the taxes were going to be last time.