If you've paid your mortgage off how old were you when you did it and how?

[Tulipsy272]

Just daydreaming about being mortgage free. I've just turned 40 and would like to do it by the time I'm 50. It's doable but it would take a huge amount of budgeting. I think it would be worth it in the long term though. I think we'd have to over pay as much as we could each month.

How old were you?

I was a homeowner aged 19 so it was a mixture of luck because house prices were much lower then and plain old being frugal. I still am tbh.

We are due to pay ours off in about 5 years. I’ll be late 40s.

35. Two good jobs (both in the 'bloke' field so two good salaries, but long hours so no time for too much spending), an all-consuming but cheap joint hobby, no kids, happy to drive second hand cars. And a fair few years back so higher interest rates, lower house prices, the idea of guzzling a daily expensive coffee was ludicrous and so on.

mix of luck and judgement.

33 but husband had a very well paid job at the time. Since then have only bought outright (no rental properties before anyone jumps down my throat).

We could pay ours off by late 40s, but the interest rate is so low that we're just letting the money sit in premium bonds instead.

We did it by buying instead of renting in the late 1990s and not trading up even though we could afford to do so.

47. I got made redundant from my banking job and paid it off with my lump sum.

45 and we did it by overpaying and not being particularly spendy people.

Early 50s. I paid it off by working full time all my adult life. Didn't have access to any short-cuts.

We were around 40. We did it by not mortgaging ourselves to the Max I guess. We just bought a house that was big enough for our needs and while all our friends on the same sort of income were upgrading to bigger houses with land/fancy barn conversions etc, we stayed put in our basic 4 bed house and just spent the extra money paying off the mortgage (we had a flexible mortgage so no penalties for paying off early)

34 bought outright after earning abroad and selling my first house at a good profit

31, but helped along by inheritance. Otherwise I would have been very frugal and overpaid as much as possible. I do know people with eye watering car loans for very new, expensive cars and who holiday 2-3 times a year who lament their mortgage and I think in that situation I would be camping and driving an old runaround to get that mortgage paid off!

It's only really worth doing if you've already got great pensions or can make additional contributions to them at the same time as overpaying the mortgage. The interest (and tax relief) you would get on pension investments if made early should far outweigh what you save in interest on the mortgage- the sooner it goes in the longer it has to grow.

I totally understand the instinct to want to pay it off but do look at all angles.

43, partner 45.

Combination of Bought In 1998 and Appreciable Salary Increase. Oh, and a shortened term because partner started an endowment policy on receiving a smallish inheritance. The policy itself was worth very little (on remortgaging we were advised to take it out of the equation) but it meant we started about 7 years in hand anyway.

We did behave relatively frugally for quite some time, but this is only relevant in conversations with people who would have been able to buy before about 2000.

Hope to be done by 45/46. Done it by not trading up and reasonably highly paid jobs but haven't tried to keep up with the Joneses.

I totally don’t get the obsession with paying off mortgages early. I get people want to be mortgage free at a reasonable point in their lives, but if it’s low interest (as most are at the moment), I’d rather spend the money on pensions, family and experiences.

I bought at 26 and kept our mortgage term the same when we moved (to keep the excellent rate), so will pay off at 51, but I’m happy letting it tick over in the meantime.

36. I was a teacher, husband was doing diplomatic work. We moved from London zone 6 to NW to be closer to family and we were able to buy outright due to the lower house prices up north.

It feels like the people who answer a thread like this are those who paid it off early. That's going to be very difficult for the younger generation. I hope to pay mine off before I retire.

Purchased at 32, paid off at 47. My single income. Frugal.

Late 30s. We sold a flat which had a mortgage and used the money plus savings to buy this house outright.

Will be paid off by 50. Have overpaid by £500 each month since getting the mortgage. Resisted the temptation to move to a bigger house & keep up with the Jones’. We can’t wait as we plan to retire early & do lots of travel.

48 years old

Due to an inheritance from my beloved MIL

47. Sadly my friend died. She left me money and the first thing I did was pay off my mortgage. Will forever be grateful.

Well I could have paid it off early 40s but I bought a bigger house instead and have not regretted it

I was 55, it was after my DM died and left me some money. But I didn't own property till I was 38.

45