Mortgages get paid off quicker with support from others who have the same goal that you do. It's a long and hard journey and it's not always a straight path, as my own personal journey shows, and the support from the members of this club have been a huge inspiration for me to keep at it.
Join our rascally group of misfits and we'll help inspire you to pay off your mortgage too and live debt free!
Join our Club today!
At the time my job allowed workers to go on job share (basically two people would agree to work part-time to cover the same shift). So that was my goal, pay off the mortgage and sign up for job share. It took 5 1/2 years to do, but I did it. I paid off the mortgage, and while job share wasn't a thing anymore, I signed up for the weekend shift. So, in total, it took me 10 1/2 years to fully pay off my $221,500 mortgage.
It's only been a few months since then, but the extra time off has made a big difference. I have plenty of time to finish projects around the house I could never do before. My stress level and anxiety level has gone way down. I've finally been able to gain weight. (I don't eat when I'm stressed, so I've always been underweight). And even though I'm part-time, I still have plenty of money for my hobbies. I'm still very careful though, it's just habit at this point.
Being part of the Mortgage Payoff Club really helped me through the process. I could talk with people with the same goals as me, without the weird disbelieving looks I'd get in real life. Plus I could see my spot in the rankings going up and up each month. And seeing other people succeed just made me want to try harder. Even just this little bit of community in this niche goal is really nice to have."
@MTorrez says: "My wife and I first decided to pay off my mortgage after tuning into Dave Ramsey and becoming inspired that we could actually do it. I had a long term goals to remodel my house the way we wanted it, but could not stomach the idea of taking out more money to do this with our existing mortgage. After hearing about the baby steps I began to day dream about not only paying off the mortgage, but also cash flowing the remodel and becoming financially independent.
It took us a significant amount of time before we were able to get to a place to begin our mortgage pay off journey. We refinanced to a lower interest rate in late 2012, which started our early payoff as we threw cash at the balance to avoid PMI on refinanced mortgage. We had quite a few things delay us from continuing with the payoff for sometime, and were able to restart in late 2014. Once we restarted this journey we got gazelle inense and were able to pay it off in early 2020, right before the pandemic hit. In total we paid off our mortgage of $348,000 (original mortgage) and prepaid over $240K.
Now without the mortgage, and with my wife back to fulltime teaching we have significant monthly cash flow. We have been able to increase our retirement, and college savings while increasing our discretionary spending. We have been able to give more generously to support some of the causes dear to our heart. The stress relief and flexibility that comes from not having any debts is incredibly liberating. You have many more choices when you are not shackled by debts. While most of this was expected and anticipated, I did not expect that simply doing the same things, but choosing to do them rather than having to do them feels very different and shifts your perspective. I think it is a taste of what full financial independence will be like.
The Mortgage Payoff Club was very helpful to find support to keep running the race. This is not a particularly quickly met goal for most, so motivation can ebb and flow. Having support when motivation ebbs help push thru to the finish line is really helpful."
@San Jose 5 Year Guy says: "I decided to pay off my mortgage early because I hated owing money to Bank of America. I knew that I was emotionally more motivated by that than other things, so if I made that my goal, I'd save more money. I also wanted the feeling of safety than comes with having a reliable place to live. I knew I could do it in a short amount of time ~2 years while still maxing out my retirement accounts. So even though it might not be mathematically optimal, it wasn't that big of a hit.
It took about 3 years overall. The first year I just got serious with my finances, cut costs, and saved up a big emergency fund. The last two years I focused on making big mortgage payments.
It's about 5.5 years since I paid off my mortgage. My mortgage was around $1200 back when I had it. One way to think about it is that I don't worry about spending an extra $1200 in a given month. That could mean eating out, buying a fancy camera lens, helping my niece with private school tuition, etc. I paid for a family trip to Maui. It doesn't buy a Lambo immediately, but it means I don't have to think about the middle class lifestyle I enjoy.
It means I can lose my job and not freak out. This allowed me to double my income in 2019 by taking the time to study properly for engineering interviews instead of taking the first offer that came my way.
It also helped me to cover expenses related to my wife getting into medical residency. It's on piece in a puzzle that will make work optional in the next 5 years.
I think the biggest challenge when you're cutting consumption is emotional. A huge part of that is what measuring stick you're using - you have to surround yourself with media and people who are on the same page. I really appreciated just being able to read the stories [on the Mortgage Payoff Club] of other people trying to pay off their mortgages - ups and downs - and knowing that I wasn't alone."
Want to feel the joy of paying off your mortgage as well? Join our club and we'll help motivate you to do it.
Join our Club today!
