"You're so lucky if you don't have a mortgage"

[NoTheyAreNotLucky]

This is nothing to do with mortgage rates or cost of living, it's about people who are so caught up in their own little bubble of self pity and victimhood, and who expect the whole world to feel sorry for them.

I've heard this so many times lately - "you're so lucky you don't have a mortgage to pay" but it's just such a stupid thing to say. At best it's thoughtless, at worst it's heartless and cruel.

• My next door neighbour - she was brought up in the 1950's in a very deprived inner city area with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, she married a good man who gave her safety and security, but who died in his forties. She was married and widowed a second time. Home is her haven, her security, but she owns it and is mortgage-free. Is she "lucky"?

• My old school friend - she paid off her mortgage at the age of 24. Both her parents died within 6 months of each other and the inheritance paid off her mortgage. Is she "lucky"

• A lady i used to work for threw herself into work as a way to cope with the death of her child and the breakdown of her marriage. She worked hard and her mortgage is paid off. Is she "lucky"?

• And i've left this one until last because i'll be dripping tears on the keyboard before i've finished. I have a friend who's been told a couple of times how lucky she is to own her house mortgage free. She just nods and smiles and makes an excuse to walk away and goes home and shuts herself in her house and sobs her fucking heart out. She's so lucky that she and her kids have a nice house, she's so lucky she has no mortgage to pay, she's so lucky she doesn't have to worry about paying the bills, she's so lucky that her husbands life insurance paid it off after he was killed by a speeding driver while he was out with the dog. . Yeah, tell her again how fucking lucky she is.

I didn't intend this post to turn into a rant, and it's not directed at people who talk about their problems and worries. It's not directed at posters on here. People are struggling financially, I know, I get it. And it's good to talk, and it's good to ask for support when you need it. But to tell someone face to face that they should feel lucky? To whinge and whine and play the victim because one aspect of your life is hard when you know so little about their history or their family circumstances?

Rant over. I wish i could say i felt better for it but I don't. It just makes me so angry.

It's very tactless and unkind, yes. However, I've known quite a few people who have inherited houses and then made tactless and cruel comments to me and others who have had traumatic bereavements and been made homeless as a result, so although to call those people 'lucky' is very wrong I do think their inheritances give them some scope for security, space to grieve and a bit less extra stress than those who don't have them.

The solution might be to have more secure housing for everyone and bereavement benefits for those left without income after loss.

Why are all these people talking about their finances with others. I never talk about my mortgage. How does it even come up?

I voted YABU. I get your point. But also, with your logic, there is probably no circumstance in which someone can say another is "lucky for x". Everyone has shit bits of their life. For many people the shit led to where they are now "I'm sad to be single, but it means I don't have to pick up after a man"; "I'm sad to be unable to have a biological child, but it means I could adopt my baby"; "I'm sad to have to work long hours in a high stress job, but it means I can provide for my family". Etc etc etc.

Someone can be thankful they don't have to deal with x (mortgage, early starts, working long hours, having to clean up after a partner), while acknowledging the hard/sad parts. Isn't that where the phrase "swings and roundabouts" came from?

Me too... I have had several of these things happen to me and I don't even have a mortgage, I have been renting for years

I’ve never had this said to me because I don’t tell people we don’t have a mortgage. We bought our house with cash at age 30 with a newborn. We were lucky in that instance.

but nobody has ever asked me, and I don’t go around shouting at the top of my voice ‘I don’t have a mortgage!’

how do these folk know that they have paid off their mortgages ???

Yes, this...
if I'm traumatised about a bereavement, the last thing I'm doing is telling people about being mortgage free knowing it was paid by inheritance or life insurance

But we're all different I suppose

The people in ‘real life’ who have disclosed to me they are mortgage free have also said why eg due to a bereavement or that they have finally made their last payment. I’d find it odd to be discussing financials and mortgage status without the reason being expanded on - do people actually do this? I say congratulations to those who have paid theirs off over time and express sympathies to those who have lost someone.

OP who are all of these people who are so open about having paid their mortgages? Why would anyone mention that?

You’ve never benefitted from any privilege? Do you live in the U.K.?

Also, since you asked OP, this bit makes you sound like a grief thief

"And i've left this one until last because i'll be dripping tears on the keyboard before i've finished. "

yes, this. how do so many people (including you, OP) know so many details of these finances. Not even my parents/siblings know about my mortgage details, and I don't know theirs (nor want to).

I do get the larger point about never knowing the detail behind someone's circumstances...but then if you start thinking that way there are very few conversation topics that couldn't possibly have some sad backstory behind them, if nobody said anything unless they were completely sure about everyone involved in the conversation (or even those just within earshot)'s full background and history we'd never talk about anything but the weather.

The posters of these pointless ranting threads never come back...

It totally does.

You do get that there are people with terrible lives of deprivation or experiences of early bereavement who don’t get free houses out of it?
Sigh. The race to the bottom that is mn.

Of course people are lucky to own a home with no mortgage.

Lots of people go through awful situations all of the time but not having a paid off mortgage means the extra stress of finding the rent every month and worrying about being made homeless.

It’s like when people say money can’t buy happiness - sure it can’t but having money takes a lot of extra stress away.

I think you’re taking the ‘lucky’ comment too literally. All the instances you’ve mentioned are truly tragic. Maybe people meant the lucky comment in a ‘well at least you don’t have the worry of a mortgage on top of everything else.

A friend of a friend had her Father’s funeral recently. I know her to say hello to and I said well lucky you had a nice day for it. I meant ‘with all the shitty weather, it was nice that the sun shone and you had the wake in a pub garden’. I don’t mean she’s lucky to be burying her father. It’s just a figure of speech. Anyone not paying a mortgage is fortunate, am I saying I want to be widowed in order to be mortgage free? Of course I’m not!

I understand that the trigger is the word 'lucky'. If it were 'in a thankfully fortunate financial position' or something else it'd be different.

It's a word I loathe. We used to travel in our 20's and were called lucky. We're about to pay off our mortgage in our 40's, and if anyone finds out will say we're lucky. But it's the word 'lucky' that bothers me. We sacrificed to do these things. Old cars, modest house, no music festivals or bars, restaurants, fancy cars, cinema. Often we were excluded from friendship groups because we wouldn't throw money around and it's still hard watching others doing those things. So 'lucky' is a terrible term if it's from difficult circumstances, whatever that might be.

Not lucky, but v sad 😕

YABU. Very unreasonable. Many people lose loved ones and still have to pay a mortgage. Your widowed friend for example, imagine if she had to cope with losing her husband and kids father and also struggle to keep the house. You're being ridiculous and very offensive. I have lost loved ones and still have to work full time and lie awake worrying about how to pay my bills as well as dealing with grief and getting on with life

This. You really don't come across very well here op.

@MermaidMummy06 why do you hate the word? Why are you so insecure about your achievements that you can't acknowledge the privilege you've had along the way to enable you to work hard for what you have? No one is saying you haven't worked hard, but you should be humble about what has enabled you. I honestly can't understand this entitled attitude, it's so ungrateful, it's so Tory!

Your OP pissed me off tbh, OP.

I have had some serious tramas in life; more than anyone else I know.

One of them was losing the career I build up and loved through unexpected brain damage, and I’ve lost everything because my DH decided he can't live with my losses anymore. The divorce took even my PIP (had to be 'shared' and judges don't all rate permanent disability like they should). I now have the biggest mortgage than anyone else I know until I am in my 80's if I even live that long, and can't afford normal necessities in life as a result, like a hair cut or new clothes, much less luxuries like dinner out.

So yeah. I'd love not to have a mortgage. It would make my life so, so much more bearable than it is. I just about held myself together through all of my traumas but the financial burden is the one that brings me down the most.

I have no idea who has/hasn’t got a mortgage in my friendship group. Why do your friends keep telling people they haven’t got one?

It's not a race to the bottom though. Pretty much everyone will experience grief in their lives, and many, many people will experience tragic bereavements. But not everyone will inherit or get a life insurance payout as a result.

If your parent was uninsured, or if your spouse commited suicide, or if the person who died was your child, you won't get a life insurance payout of any kind. You'll just have to deal with whatever financial mess is left, and keep working to pay the bills, on top of your grief.

Losing someone isn’t lucky, but those who lose someone but are left financially secure are much luckier than those who aren't.

It is absolutely privileged/a massive sense of security to have a mortgage-free house. When people have suffered a bereavement for this to happen, it is absolutely tragic, but is still a privileged financial position to be in. Plenty of people suffer a bereavement and don’t own a house as a result of it, that is tragic as well. I’m presuming it’s the word ‘lucky’ that annoys people.