To ask, is it really as relaxing as I think it must be not to worry about rent / mortgage and own a home outright while still working?

[Swellerellamoo]

Just that really. I'm renting and saving for a deposit to buy and it feels so stressful....I'm constantly worried that if I lose my job / get ill / landlord sells I don't know what would happen to me and my DC (lone parent, no maintenance). I have friends who own their houses outright and so work less... They are lovely enough to never make a big deal that they feel comfortable and unstressed , but they must, right? I fantasize about owning my home outright and thinking wow I would feel so lucky. Is that how it feels?

We were thousands better off a month as soon as the mortgage ended. So yes, the stress levels did indeed reduce.

We own our home outright (inheritance) and had a mortgage previously. Sold our old house and used that money plus the inheritance to buy where we are now.

It's definitely less stressful. There is still a bit of worrying about losing jobs etc but it's more a case of what will we eat/how will we heat type thing than 'oh shit we might actually lose our home'.

Yes the upkeep of your own home is more expensive than the upkeep of rent. If stuff breaks it's on us to fix it, but being mortgage free is easier than being mortgaged. We put away a bit each month (a bit less than what was previously going on mortgage repayments) to account for that so we have a buffer, though not a huge one atm. It's been eaten up by having to replace a built in oven, an entire double glazed window unit and a front door. If we rented we wouldn't have had to pay for any of that

the trouble is i get one worse and think even if i own it.the bad thing that might happen wouldnt be less worry because it would be so bad that i wouldnt be able to afford food,heating,bills for it!

We have a Georgian house and something is at risk of going spectacularly and expensively wrong at any time. So we do save thousands into an account specifically for the house.

I channelled a lot of my surplus money into my mortgage in order to pay it off early (not on a particularly high wage). It definitely helps to reduce stress - although of course it doesn't remove it entirely - and also gives a feeling of freedom.

it helps to reduce the stress. there is always somewher to live. I have access to another house as well... but for how long depends on how much the nursing home costs altogether.

We paid ours off at Christmas after 14 yrs - all 250k of it plus another 150k of savings on house renovations. it was all our own efforts; thankfully we still have our parents so no inheritances.

We were also lucky interest rate wise in that after four years of being at a highish fixed rate, we moved to a SVR which tracked the very low base rate.

My husband feels relieved that we’ve paid it off but I don’t give it a lot of thought. Life still carries on, still other household bills to pay. We both work full time and don’t feel we can take it easy.

Having a decent pension and ensuring our DS is set up are our priorities now. It’s also possible we may move house and will probably need another mortgage; not keen on thought of this.

But surely the security of a roof over your head is....security? To a far greater extent than most people have?

Bit surprised by the “meh” responses.

It's certainly a huge help. I had a couple of years unwaged recently, when I'm usually the high earner of the two of us. We could just absorb that, because we'd paid off the mortage and outgoings had dropped from £2k/month to £500ish.

In terms of "well, there's maintenance" - that's no different to when you have a mortgage, so doesn't really affect anything.

I own my house (through work and saving, no inheritance or help) and dont feel stress free for many of the reasons mentioned above but I'm so grateful for the feeling of security it brings. I rented when younger and a single parent and, like you hated that feeling of insecurity and never quite sure what the future could bring (and we had a reasonable landlord, not like some of the shysters around these days that many are at the mercy of). I still work full time as the house is a wreck work in progress so the money freed up from the mortgage goes toward getting the jobs done so dont feel the financial benefit yet. Good luck with your planning for your future, you'll have those keys one day.

TBH the least stressed / most secure I ever felt about the roof over my head was when I was a Council tenant. This was back in the early 1980s when Councils had decent housing stocks, the sell-off hadn't started yet. My wages were so low I qualified for rent & rate rebate - this almost halved it. I had to budget really carefully, 'every penny a prisoner' , but I never ever worried about losing my home. Even if I'd lost my job, my rent would have been adjusted to match.

Mortgage free here due to hard work, overpaying and not really spending on anything else.

More recently though, been referred to counsellor due to unbearable stress which is affecting my pregnancy.

Yes it's nice not having a mortgage, but I paid it off early out of principle. I would rather still be paying it and not have the problems I do have.

Grass is always greener etc.

strawberries “. I would rather still be paying it and not have the problems I do have“

But it’s not a trade off!

Yes, it is fantastic to have no rent or mortgage payments. Really, really fantastic. It is a massive amount of money which is no longer pouring out the door every month. It's a huge weight off. The ripples of that financial freedom spread wide.

It has meant, for example, that I had a real choice about whether to stay home with my kids full-time. As for my DH, he works on building sites, where occasionally health and safety is compromised horribly. He's one of the few people there who is in a financial position to act as whistle-blower, and he doesn't hesitate to do so. He knows that if he gets blacklisted for it, he can just cut back on his working hours and spend more time in the garden. Most of the people working alongside him have no choice but to suck up dangerous conditions at times.

But surely the security of a roof over your head is....security? To a far greater extent than most people have?

You adapt though. And not worrying about housing just becomes normal.

About 15 years ago dh had some strange symptoms that required lots of nasty tests and trips to neurologists etc. Brain tumours, motor neurone disease and MS were all mentioned as possibilities. He didn’t have any of them and is now fine. (They never fully figured out what it was.) After weeks / months of worry it was amazing how quick my first thought in the morning stopped being “yahoo - my husband doesn’t have a brain tumour!” and instead became “oh shit - I’ve got to finish that presentation today”. Because dh not having a brain tumour was normal.

I do agree though once you don't need mortgage money anymore, it gets taken up by something else. We are using this period to try and save for kids going to Uni or whatever.

Plus the kids are getting older and DS1 is becoming quite good at a particular sport, moving into rep level etc which costs £££

And our house needs some a lot of TLC, we haven't done much work on it since we bought it nearly 10yrs ago. First it needs to new carpet, and needs to be repainted in some areas. Then we are looking at converting the loft.