What age did you pay off home mortgage?

[DawnM]

This is the way we used to live as well......now we are "weird" and not "normal!"

I am not going to try to convince you that living below your means is better, but for US it certainly is. The security of knowing we no longer owe money on cars or student loans and having almost a year's worth of emergency funds available should we need it has really freed us financially.

Now, if we had just started living this way BEFORE we bought this house, I would feel even better.

Dawn

Just to make someone else feel a bit more 'normal' We won't be done for 25 more years and ideally? We plan on moving in 5 years and using the equity in our house to build...and take out another 30yr. mortgage. I don't mind though. I don't know any of my friends that are paying theirs off early. I know of many that are struggling to even make the mortgage.

We have 2 car loans, 2 student loans and a mortgage. This is the 'norm' for our friends. We all make decent $$...high 5 figures or low 6 figures. Living in our area that's well above the median which is around 45K/household. Most are 2 income homes and have daycare expenses too.

We do ok for ourselves and have 10% in retirement $$ being saved yearly. I consider ourselves 'average middle class'. Could we do better by not buying nice things or going on nice trips? Sure! But ya only live once and ya can't take it with you

I think it's great that you all are so good about paying off your debts. I just can't ever see us being this way and I'm ok with that.

So just in case there are other 30 year mortgage people and other 20 year student loan people out there- you are not alone

 

[herdtoDisney]

We just refinanced-last week-our house, which we bought less than 2 years ago. We did thirty year, but we have mapped out a plan to pay it off in 20-making dh 57 when done. We might even do it in less, once the kids are through school. Hopefully...

We drive old buckets of bolts so no car payments, and try to pay cash for everything (except the house).

 

[Gr8t Fan]

This is the way we used to live as well......now we are "weird" and not "normal!"

I am not going to try to convince you that living below your means is better, but for US it certainly is. The security of knowing we no longer owe money on cars or student loans and having almost a year's worth of emergency funds available should we need it has really freed us financially.

Now, if we had just started living this way BEFORE we bought this house, I would feel even better.

Dawn

ITA!!!! I sooooo wish DH and I would have taken a 15 year mortgage in the first place, because it would have already been paid off by now. But we felt that the payments were too high and both of us were working full-time then. UGH!!!!! If we knew then what we know now -- that we'd be a single income family for the past 9 years by choice and managing just fine, and that we'd be making accelerated payments, we would definitely have taken a 15 year in the first place. It's something we've tried to ingrain into our children, even going so far as to say that we'll pay the difference between a 30 and a 15 for them for a few years if that's what it takes.

 

[DawnM]

Ah, hindsight eh?

We just got a 15 year this past year.

Dawn

ITA!!!! I sooooo wish DH and I would have taken a 15 year mortgage in the first place, because it would have already been paid off by now. But we felt that the payments were too high and both of us were working full-time then. UGH!!!!! If we knew then what we know now -- that we'd be a single income family for the past 9 years by choice and managing just fine, and that we'd be making accelerated payments, we would definitely have taken a 15 year in the first place. It's something we've tried to ingrain into our children, even going so far as to say that we'll pay the difference between a 30 and a 15 for them for a few years if that's what it takes.

 

[ceecee]

Depends on how old you were when you got married and/or purchased your first home. A lot of people rent in their 30's,40's, etc. and have more $ saved than others in their 30's who own a home.

 

[GAN]

We should have the mortgage paid off in less than 10 years -that would make us somewhere around 55/57. Our rate is at a point where it's low enough that paying it off earlier would make little sense. The money is better invested into the retirement fund. We have one in college and another on the way in 2 years, but they are assuming a part of that themselves with some help from us Then hopefully we can retire a little early -or at least semi-retire.

 

[disykat]

I was 49, DH was 45. We paid off the Spring before our oldest stated college.

We bought our first home when I was 29, so we had a total of 20 years paying a mortgage.

It's worked out well for us. We have some college savings which we'll use for our kids the years they are both in, but the mortgage payment + extra that we were paying adds up to just about enough to pay for one child in college.

It'll be a few years before we notice any difference because the money just diverted to a different expense!

 

[Swimalie]

I'm not the poster that you questioned, but we bought when we were 23 and paid it off when we were 26. .

Same with us. My husband saved while in the Navy and when he got out, he paid cash for his house at age 26. We married a few years later and had a paid-for house. Since then we have totally upgraded in houses and areas to live and now we have a mortgage but that first house allowed us to put down a nice down payment.

 

[jennyjinx3]

I was 49, DH was 45. We paid off the Spring before our oldest stated college.

We bought our first home when I was 29, so we had a total of 20 years paying a mortgage.

It's worked out well for us. We have some college savings which we'll use for our kids the years they are both in, but the mortgage payment + extra that we were paying adds up to just about enough to pay for one child in college.

It'll be a few years before we notice any difference because the money just diverted to a different expense!

This will be us, and almost the same ages! As soon as our is paid off (approx 10 yrs) we are also diverting ours to the "different expense" also!!

 

[MissDaisyofTexas]

WOW, I feel like such a slacker!

We just moved 2 years ago, and a few months ago refinanced to a 20 year mortgage. But I hope we can pay it off in 11 years, since that is when our oldest will start college. I will be 50! (OMG!)

 

[alice99]

The actual mortgage isn't much but the taxes of $9,900.00 a year I'd like give up.

Yes, I know this feeling. I live in NY and my taxes are almost 13K per year.

I think a lot of factors come into play here, especially location. Living anywhere where the cost of living is high can make it difficult to do. I watch a lot of HGTV and I'm amazed at some of the prices for homes in New Jersey. Plus the taxes to boot -- it's crazy.

Cost of the home and taxe$ are a huge factor. I see people buying homes for 100K..... that is not possible where I live. You are not getting anything decent for less than 275K then add the taxes onto the mortgage payment. UGH!

Anyhow, ours will be paid when we are 55....

I see some great helpful hints in this thread for paying early.... I am going to work on being more disciplined and paying more $$ toward my principle.

Thanks all!

 

[mrodgers]

Depends on how old you were when you got married and/or purchased your first home. A lot of people rent in their 30's,40's, etc. and have more $ saved than others in their 30's who own a home.

Also so many more factors and variables than this. How much medical expenses you've had, how much you make, how much the purchase cost is, 2 incomes vs. 1 income, kids or no kids, buy newer cars or cheap junk cars, quality cars vs. poor quality cars, etc. etc.

We are at 11 years into our refinance (which was 1 year after purchase). 30 year mortgage, so we have 19 years less. The income factor says it will take that 19 years. The income factor states it will take the 19 years. Age factor states that I just turned 40, so it will be when I am 59. I'm just glad it will be paid off 40 years before I retire because back to the income factor, that states I'll probably never retire.

 

[averysmom]

We've got 5.5 years left - so I'll be 42 and dh will be 43. I took both of my 1 year mat. leaves and chose to work part-time for the past 10 years, so I would stay home with the kids part-time and we only paid off as much as we could. Dh also has no pension, so we've been making sure that we fund his RRSPs. My youngest started full-time school and now I'm going back to work full-time, so the plan is to ut all that extra into the mortgage.

 

[JessicaW1234]

Hopefully by the time my youngest DD in 4th grade is in college we'll see. What is the current financial advise for families who have kids going to college. It used to be don't pay your house off your child won't get any financial assistance with college. Does home equity count?

Does anyone know how this works? Thinking of refinancing to a 15 year mortgage.

 

[veraletta]

We had a 30-year mortgage, so we had it paid off when I turned 55 and husband was 56. Wished we could have afford to pay it off in 15 years but it was an older home and we had to do a lot of repairs. If we could do it all over again, we would have brought a new home...

 

[scbelleatheart]

We built our own home and paid as we went while we lived in a trailer behind it. We were 21 and 23 at the time. it took us 2 years to build and another 2 years to get furniture but we never had a mortgage. We lived in it for 30 years and raised 4 kids. You could not do that now.
2 years ago we sold it, making a very nice profit and paid cash for our new house that is 7 years old on 5 acres. Again, no mortgage.
When we were house shopping, we looked at dumps for $175K
I really don't know how people with mortgages do it. Taxes and utilities alone are around $1000 a month. Add a mortgage and upkeep to that! I have admiration for those who can do it.

 

[budafam]

There are so many different factors like others are mentioning. Our taxes are $2,000 a year and we live in an EXCELLENT part of town with a very large yard for being "in the city". We bought our house for $99,900 3 years ago and we pay $736 per month for mortgage, insurance & taxes. At this rate, we will be paid off when we are 56. Most likely we will be done well before that though. I pay a little extra each month (not much but every little bit counts) and we enjoy our life. We take our kids on trips, buy things we want... we could do the suffering thing and enjoy life later but why? We might not be around later.

 

[patsal]

I was 45 and DH was 44. It was a conventional 30 year mortgage that was taken out 1998. It took us 13.5 years to pay it off. We are pretty happy about that.

 

[mks18412]

I am a SAHM with two kids with one income. Fingers crossed our mortgage with be paid off by the time we are 37/38 yrs old.

 

[ckmommy]

I'll be dead!!