Work hard now to pay off your mortgage by 30, and retire by 40

[Ieattoomuchsugar]

And to buy a house at 19/20 whatever age

Maybe exaggerating with the ages a bit but these are examples I've seen.

People who've gone without holidays, new clothes etc, lived with the bare minimum and worked endless overtime for years in order to achieve the above.

Has anybody actually done this or in the process of doing it?

I do see the appeal but I personally wouldn't want/wouldn't have wanted to spend my 20s and 30s living that way. I do think life is to be enjoyed, I of course want to save but I am not prepared to go without things I enjoy for such a long time. I think it's better to strike a balance, and I'd rather enjoy life now just as much as when I am 50/60.

@bitemyarsenic

Are you retired if you still work?

Yes Im a Midwife.
Many hospital trusts do Retire and Return to avoid a massive loss of skills.
Im officially retired and draw my pension but work PT.

Personally I see retirement as meaning you have retired from all paid employment.

You’re working part time.

I’m working part time

I don’t regard myself as having retired

Dd bought a tiny grotty flat for cash (4 figures). in an area hundreds of miles away when she was 18.
Her idea was that she did it up, sold it then bought nearer and nearer home till she was able to buy for cash near where she needs to be for work.

Mileage and time off work and then lockdowns put a bit of a damper on that but she is looking to sell her first place now and move onto the next place which she is hoping won’t be as far to travel to work on.
It has taken so long that she rented it out for a while as we didn’t know which way the lockdowns would be going or how harsh they could be.

We worked for a year to afford a deposit. The banks were offering 100% mortgages but our salaries were so crap the multiples (once times my lower salary and 1.5 times dhs) we couldn’t afford even the tiniest studio flat.
We did earn enough after 1 year and bought and then moved up the property ladder.
As it turns out having to pay for cancer treatment (seems NHS isn’t free to just anyone, you also have to live in the right postcode) and lockdowns which meant we lost all our income, permanently, meant we have been wiped out. Personally as it has turned out I would have been better off staying in rented or getting a council house and having as many children as we liked and having a much easier time than working all hours initially and doing the right thing. Doing the right thing has probably taken years off my life and put years on my face to get to a point where I am worse off now than I have ever been (freezing cold in a rented house) I don’t think I have moved forward from my early childhood which was also spent freezing cold in a rented house.

Personally I see retirement as meaning you have retired from all paid employment.
Fair enough.
Im officially retired and drawing my full pension.
Im retired from my FT role and work PT because I enjoy it.
Many people draw their pension and step down gradually into less stressful roles-lots of this in the NHS.
Best of both worlds

@Ieattoomuchsugar

Retiring at 40 is a pipedream, unless you have a couple of million £££ or more by then (like you have a lottery win or you acquire an inheritance...) Some famous/rich people have the ability to retire at 40, but most do not.

Don't believe everything you read on here @Ieattoomuchsugar I am in my late 40s, and have never known a single SOUL who has retired at 40... That includes middle class professionals/ doctors/ nurses/ lawyers/ vicars/ police/ fire brigade/ dentists/ business owners etc. No-one retires at 40.

Even sports people, and dancers etc, who have to finish work at 35-40 as they can't do it anymore coz it's too physical, will still do other things like presenting on tv or writing or coaching/teaching etc. No-one 'retires' at 40.

As I said, don't believe everything you read on here. Not one single person on this website has retired at 40.

Stupid title - retire by 40 ? What are you going to live off even if you have paid your mortgage off ?

I hate reading stuff like this and I feel sorry for myself!! Lol.

Me and DH earn over £100k a year between us. Two small kids, childcare and we’ve always rented. Come from Backgrounds where people didn’t buy a house so was never even a consideration until we fell pregnant. At that time DH then wasn’t working and didn’t for a year, we’ve now got two lots of childcare going out, rent and trying to save for a deposit whilst house prices have become, for us at least, quite illusive.

Really of the view it’s going to be a long time before we can afford something suitable as we can’t save quick enough to even meet the prices. So, this won’t be us and like others, we work hard but it isn’t even attainable for some who are earning well above average salaries!

Not quite as I adopted a balanced view.

Bought house at 23 and paid mortgage (having moved a few times and remortgaged) off mid 40s. Will be retiring soon early 50s.

I can't wait to retire but I have worked full time since I was 16 (even when I retrained as a mature student I had three part time jobs on the go).

I won't be bored and will have a moderate retirement income.

@IamGusFring

Stupid title - retire by 40 ? What are you going to live off even if you have paid your mortgage off ?

You can overpay mortgage and still contribute to pensions and investments (need investments rather than pension to access money before 55/57).

I see retiring as also including going part time or getting an income from a side hobby.

But it's you choosing to do that work, picking and choosing, a very different mindset.

I could live on drawing down savings until pension kicks in. Most if my assets generate capital right now and not income as such.

But I prefer to do a bit of work and not need to draw down savings. (And keeps ni contributions up I suppose)

I’m not yet 30 and could probably get the mortgage paid off in the next year or so if we wanted to but … meh.

We’d only have to put the mortgage money elsewhere in order to have enough to live off in retirement as we wouldn’t have much of a property to sell so I don’t see the point. It’s not all that.

We had cash. We had the option of buying outright or having a mortgage and "buying more". We bought outright.

House prices were in the process of going up - what I thought was to insane levels at this time: 2004. However the insanity of the modern economy means house prices have now exceeded their previous insane highs.

House prices the year before we started looking on our street 40k. By the time we bought we paid over double that. They're now going at £175k.
You can view house prices on Rightmove - they have an easy to browse section for this.

There's an interesting video on this here:

Basically he points out that the interest rates on mortgages are currently very low, so rather than focus on paying it off sooner you'd make better $$$ progress in the long term by paying off credit cards, loans etc (higher interest) and making some investments if you can possibly afford to (however small).

Unless you are buying a full sized family home in your 20s, how can you clear off your future mortgage? If I had worked hard and cleared off the mortgage of my first home, I’d be sitting in a two bed flat. The house I have now is worth 5 times what I owned then and the value of it would be the deposit on this one, which is what we needed as a family home so we’d still have a mortgage. There is no world in which I’d have been able to borrow enough at that age to pay for this house. Financially, it doesn’t make logical sense.

I have a few friends who are mortgage free because they had some luck on the property market with their first couple of properties, bought in a serious bust then sold in a serious boom and made shed loads of money on it.

Our mortgage will be paid off by the time we retire and we are likely to downsize so that gives us the same cushion.

Over the years we have spent ridiculous amounts of money. Much of it on random stuff and eating out. That could have been saved for the kids or paid off our mortgage. For us it’s not about living frugally or not enjoying life. I don’t begrudge any of the money spent on lovely holidays, days out or experiences for the kids. I do regret many of the trips to PizzaExpress and the local pub when I couldn’t be bothered to cook, as well as the thoughtless last minute purchases and very extravagant spending on the kids - they can only play with so much. That money could have been better spent elsewhere.

We spoke to an excellent financial advisor a couple of years ago when our purchasing our home and he was horrified at the amount of money we spent. Dh earns relatively well and he said that given his earnings we should be paying far more on our mortgage and putting much more into savings. He said that we could still have an amazing quality of life on the amount that was left, providing we stop the ‘mindless spending’. He was absolutely right and we have followed his advice.

I only returned to work at nearly 40 so have no interest in early retirement. Dh often talks of retiring at 50, but he means taking a step back and being able to take extended holidays rather than taking full retirement. We do both want to have the house paid off within the next 5 years, which is do-able without being stingy or frugal if we continue to only spend money on things that bring us and the kids joy. It isn’t always about being miserly, sometimes it’s just a case of prioritising and being aware of your spending.

DS bought a house at 23 and could pay offhis mortgage by 30. I imagine he would choose to buy a bigger / better house instead.
I do know someone who did that. The most frugal person I ever met, her a d her husband had a plan to retire at 40 and they did. Sadly her DH died only a year later so it wasn't quite the retirement she had hoped for.

Given the number of people I know who have died or been diagnosed with life changing illnesses in their 30s and 40s I would say this lifestyle is a prime example of abject stupidity.

Life is for living and none of us know when that will change.

@Stuffin very few people in that position. We worked abroad and overpaid massively however it was the high paying job until the age of 50 that has hit the pension jackpot.

@BoredZelda

Unless you are buying a full sized family home in your 20s, how can you clear off your future mortgage? If I had worked hard and cleared off the mortgage of my first home, I’d be sitting in a two bed flat. The house I have now is worth 5 times what I owned then and the value of it would be the deposit on this one, which is what we needed as a family home so we’d still have a mortgage. There is no world in which I’d have been able to borrow enough at that age to pay for this house. Financially, it doesn’t make logical sense.

I have a few friends who are mortgage free because they had some luck on the property market with their first couple of properties, bought in a serious bust then sold in a serious boom and made shed loads of money on it.

Our mortgage will be paid off by the time we retire and we are likely to downsize so that gives us the same cushion.

But you can actually live fine in a 2 bad flat. Not everyone needs a massive house, particularly if no kids.

By not keep trading up I have probably saved a ton of costs such as stamp duty /legals /moving /remortgage.
And of course annual costs like fuel are lower, less furniture needed and lower council tax.

But the uk desire seems to be to keep getting more and more house. Europe seems to be more flat positive (even with kids)

Nah not for me. I bought within my means, gave me the ability to go to back to university and remain paying a low mortgage which will be completed when I'm 40. I bought at 25.

Can also sell next year and buy bigger, but still within my means.

All while enjoying holidays and days out

Life is for living, I'm not going without just for bricks and water

I know 2 people who have worked on oil rigs and been able to retire very young. Maybe that's the answer? Hard going though.

No I'd rather enjoy life now. A friend of ours died recently in his 40s and he had an enormous pension saved up. I wish he'd not been so frugal and enjoyed his life a bit more.

As I said below we worked abroad...and travelled. We earned tax free and saved over just over 100k. We bought an a 2 bed house for 87k (spent 15k ish)then we sold it about 4 years later for 164k. In the meantime we had saved 50k as we had no mortgage (also had 2 dc) we then bought cheap land, and built our current house for approx 290k using the money saved and money we were earning at the time. We also cashed in an investment my dh had. Which was about 40k.

EVERYONE I know who has become mortgage free in their 30's/40's has worked abroad.
None of us are retired though...

@saleorbouy I am 29 and we are currently overpaying our mortgage by £1k..I know it makes sense to put it into pension but at the same time I want to buy a bigger 3 bed flat in our area (in London suburbs, quite a few of them are larger than the traditional 2 up 2 downs in terms of usable space and cheaper). So overpaying would help me that. Technically if I never upgrade, I could be done with mortgage by 40... There are people living with 2 DC in my development. Then maybe I could theoretically sell the flat and move to somewhere cheaper than London to get a bigger place at the same cost but not having mortgage costs doesn't mean that you can necessarily afford to retire. With inflation, it would be easy to run out of money as a lot of people on the FIRE track seem to have discovered. I mean DH has a friend who always lived with family through choice and has a fully paid up BTL, plus is going to get another BTL so has no housing costs and she can't afford to retire at 45 despite being way above average salary (no children, unmarried)...

@burnoutbabe many countries in europe have a bigger supply of 3 bedroom family flats...if there were more 3 bed flats, it might be an option for more families. I have a 2 bed flat and am looking to upgrade to a 3 bed flat. It's still cheaper than moving to a 3 bed house (not the tiny 2 up 2 down with loft conversion as I don't see that as a genuine upgrade; if I am paying for an extra room, I actually want an extra bedroom, not a converted one) but it's still a significant step up as the truly big spacious ones are often bought by downsizers who have lots of cash! The UK flat market seems to be either targeted at poor people (council), old people, young people or as BTL investments!

When we bought our current house we took out a 20 year mortgage rather than 25 years, with a view to paying the mortgage off a bit faster. We could still have holidays etc. So if you are buying a house you could consider a shorter mortgage term if you can afford the larger monthly repayments.