Being mortgage free in 40s

[Lm1981]

did being mortgage free early then expected fell anti climatic? Just curious if it changed your thoughts or even motivation

It was joyous, especially as it was a situation I wouldn't have imagined possible for myself a few years earlier after a bad marriage and having to leave with nothing. I remember phoning the bank to pay off my mortgage early and after all the money laundering questions, the man congratulated me. It was quite emotional for me.
A few years down the line, I'm thinking of taking out a mortgage again to get a more suitable house.

It only happened because my parents died. I know other people thought I was ‘lucky’ (and even said so to me). But at the time, I felt anything but.

Won't happen for us but I would he soooooo happy...

We paid ours off early 40s on mid terrace house. then got another one at 50 to buy a bigger house with a garden and off road parking.

Got it 4 years ago when mortgage rates still low and about to pay off next year. It cost us didly squat in interest.

Mortgage free was v nice, having another one was fine, looking forward to being mf again.

But I wouldn't obsess on getting rid of it.

It was a great feeling and on a practical level it meant savings & pensions could be prioritised. The upshot of this was that our next house was bought without the need for another mortgage and a comfortable early retirement was affordable.

Same as @Tapestree
subsequently bought a much bigger house which will be a pension boost for me when I retire .
Meantime l love my house 😊

I will be mortgage free in two years in my early thirties. Can't wait.

We will be very soon due to an inheritance, it's going to be life changing for us .

Doesn’t really feel much different. Guess what we used to pay into the mortgage now is mainly swallowed up by cost of living. We were lucky I guess that the mortgage ended as food and heating costs shot up. So can’t say I’ve noticed any difference sadly!

We were mortgage free for a while and then bought a bigger property which needed a mortgage. Obviously it freed up some money but that money was then swallowed by nursery costs so we didn't notice it per se. We also knew we'd want to move to somewhere bigger so it was always only going to be temporary. It actually made it more difficult to get a new mortgage because there were lots of AML questions about how we'd paid off the first one.

The actual act of paying it off was very anti climactic for me! Just did a bank transfer and got a letter a few days later to say the account had been closed. I wanted streamers and champagne 😆

I can't wait - think I will be 48 when it's paid off and I have so many plans for the spare money!

Yep we were mortgage free in our 30s when DS was born, which was hugely helpful with massive nursery fees etc.

But it was a tiny flat, so aged 45 I have a new, massive 20 year mortgage on an actual house (hoping to pay it off early, but won’t be mortgage free before I’m 60)

Very anti climatic. Fid it because I gad 2 and a half months off work ill and was worried about being in a vulnerable position. Started to over pay. Would have preferred to have had the confidence to buy something bigger so I could downsize later.

Ha. Just managed to buy a house at 42. 28 year mortgage term. On the other hand did finally pay the balance on my student loan 6 months later!

It wasn't anticlimactic to me as we overpaid by loads a year after we had the mortgage which happened to coincide with the expensive nursery years.

The total interest we paid was only 15k for a 150k mortgage. So, it was a huge relief after we paid for it. It freed up a lot of funds for and we feel much secure, even during Covid and high inflation period. It was hard work though. Looking back, I didn't know how we did it.

It was great. We then paid all the spare £ into savings and pensions, then retired early a few years later.

I went mortgage free just about in my 40s (I could have done it in my 30s but was in conflict over doing it with DH). Was best thing ever as there’s a security with it. I had been overpaying for years and now we have the extra money that we save and can also afford loads we couldn’t before.

Huge anticlimax. Life and bills carried on as before.

It is great.

We paid off our mortgage just before I was 34. It did feel a bit anticlimactic because I've not told anyone in real life.

I'm definitely appreciating it more now my friends are worrying about their rates increasing.

I was mortgaged free at 35. But house was a tiny mid terraced I'd bought when I was 23. Then aged 40, I bought a much bigger 4 bedroom detached house at huge discount with a small mortgage. Will be paying that off this December aged 44. We do not plan on ever taking another mortgage again as our house is worth around 800k. We will either move to the country and buy another house of similar value, or a smaller cheaper house that we can renovate to our taste. The feeling of being mortgage free is that you can sleep better at night and not to worry about bills too much. Hubby n I will go semi retired and travel most of the time. Kids have flown the nest. We also have 2 rentals valued at 300k each and both mortgage free

It was liberating but I can't really say that it felt like we had all that extra money per month. I guess it just sort of got frittered a away. I'm glad we were free of the mortgage by the time the kids went to Uni though as we now support them with a similar amount to what we used to pay on the mortgage repayment.