Paying off mortgage

[TBH]

I liked the tone of this piece. It gives three examples of people who paid off their mortgages, all for different reasons and in different parts of the country.

We Paid Off Our Mortgage: Tales of 3 Homeowners

I'm several years away from paying mine off, but I have thought about the idea of trying to pay it off before DS goes to college. That would give me $1100 a month to pay toward his tuition!

[EEinNJ]

I liked that there wasn't the usual hand-wringing question of whether it was a good idea to pay off the mortgage, and also that there was a range of prices & situations. These were people who simply had a goal, a strategy, the discipline, and patience over time to achieve it.

[myrdale]

The largest driving force personally for me is wanting to mitigate risk. While life will always throw you surprises, knowing that no matter what happens, you will always have a roof over your head personally gives me a strong sense of security.

With any luck at all, the couple who is funding their son's college with the money they would have put towards a house payment, their son will graduate debt free. Not having $40,000+ hanging over your head on day 1 will be a huge blessing.

[phantom]

That is a nice article. I like how the home owners in the first two examples talked about getting the mortgages paid off by keeping their spending in check. They didn't talk about needing to make crazy sacrifices or anything like that to pull it off. Sometimes it seems like my husband and I have a long way to go to get rid of our mortgage, so it's always nice to read about people who have done it.

[Slug]

Although I'm a contrarian on this and believe I benefit more by paying the minimum on my mortgage while investing and building up a bigger safety net, I always like when the media gives attention to dutiful savers.

[sblatner]

We paid off our mortgage about a year ago in anticipation of our son graduating high school in 2013. We saved and saved and were frugal for 17 years so that we could do this. It is a great feeling to know that we own our house free and clear.

One regret I have is not really saving for college during that time. We are fine and can afford to send our kids to college but I have realized after a friend was diagnosed with cancer, that life can change in a second and we wouldn't be fine if one of us got sick and couldn't work anymore. We are now saving for college but don't have enough if our income was decreased because of illness. We should have been saving all along (even $50 a month is better than nothing) instead of waiting til the house was paid off. Just something to think about.