So how did you get mortgage free?

[Mog]

It's really amazing that so many of you seem to be mortgage free in your early 40's. How did you do this? Would love to be like this and to hear stories of how to do it.

had a current account mortgage, didn't go out much, er that's it.

Surely for most people it will depend on the sizer of the mortgage inrelation to their salary
plus luck for others

Not knocking the question am interested in this too, but had I bought a house 10 yrs ago my mortgage would be 70k buying the same house now it would be over 300k that's it for me.

I could downsize to a small garage to achieve this now.

We're aiming to do this.

We took out a mortgage aged 20 (co-incidentally my dh took out one the same age as me even though he didn't have a house).

We've spent the last couple of years over-paying our mortgage. We've also had a lot of luck in buying and selling properties at the right time to earn a quick buck.

We bought our first house in 1999 before the prices went silly.
We borrowed far less than our max entitlement, because we wanted to be able to cover the mortgage with a single salary (both our jobs were insecure). In hindsight I wished we had borrowed to our max, but we couldn't foresee job security or house prices soaring.
DH got obsessed with idea to plow any spare money into the mortgage, he voluntarily shortened the term and raised our payments far above what we needed to keep Nationwide happy. Plus the lender let us make one-off over-payments as often as we wanted, as long as they were over a threshold value.
We (I) had a lot of savings/investments to start with (frugal life in previous years), so plenty to cash out.
I cashed in an investment ISA near the top of the stock market (pure dumb luck, although I did carefully calculate it was a more reliable investment to take the money off the mortgage, instead).

We couldn't do it today, not with current house prices and me not even earning in last few years.

A sad cock-up by the NHS resulting in compensation meant we could pay of mortgage as well as cashing in investments/ saving loads and living as far ss poss of one salary and using the other for paying of mortgage. Bought in 2002- mortgage free by 2004. never banked on my salary, which means I could be a SAHM. We were very lucky, but achieved at a high personal loss

We bought and sold old properties and now are in rented with our money in an account waiting to buy.It was a pain at times and we aren't there yet but should be by the summer.

Current account mortgage here too. Though we are about a year off - so can't count chickens!

sold up in UK, bought a ridiculously cheap house abroad and now live in it, and used part of equity to set up our own company

bit drastic but it worked for us

i was pensioned off 7 years ago and paid the lump sum off the mortgage, i brought this house when i was single Steve had brought his house when he was single so he sold his and we paid more off the mortgage, we don't owe much and could pay it off if we wanted to.

built a small house, but big enough for us, aka the Wong Wing on the back of MIL's house for cash. We are not on the title deeds but we are protected in her will.

Paid ours off by our late 30,s. Didnt blow money on expensive holidays and made our cars last until they dropped! Every spare penny went on overpaying the mortgage.

We were mortgage free at 36 & 40....met and married late, both had bought 1st homes when 21 and kept moving up the ladder, we made sound housing investments and were lucky to buy low and sell when booming ... egs. my 1st terrace in '85 was £14k and sold 4 yrs later for £28k..my semi in '99 was £40k and sold 4 yrs later for £150k... the equity paid off Dhs 50% mortgage and we were mortgage free (keeping the endowments as savings schemes)...being dinkys with no mortgage for 4 yrs was very nice

However, we have in the last 15 months bought a much bigger property (and had a baby) though the repayment mortgage was calculated on dhs income only so is affordable even with me taking mat. leave..when I return to f/t work (in 2-3 yrs time) we intend making overpayments so the mortgage can be cleared when our endowments are due to pay out ie. in 6 yrs time so we will hopefully be mortgage free again before we are 46 & 50...ideally the financial freedom will enable us to take time out to enjoy our son.

We will be mortgage free in our early forties, but will achieve it in very ordinary ways.

First of all, we took out our first mortgage relatively young - I was 24, he was 25. Then about 7 years ago we started overpaying the mortgage, first £50 a month then £100, even though at times things were a bit tight and we could have used the money elsewhere.

Also, we haven't really up-sized, in terms of getting the biggest/best house we could afford. So while we could theoretically get a much bigger house/mortgage based on our income, we have stuck with what we have in order to get rid of the mortgage more quickly.

yes we are about go from being mortgage-free for 2 years - having under-stretched ourselves in '99 on our first property - to being mortgage-full. we're v excited to be buying our home for life (i hope) but it'll be quite a shock to the system. i've become accustomed to having cash and we'll have to go back to our stringent lifestyle again. but it'll be worth it. we'll aim to pay this off asap with another current account mortgage but the monthly interest will limit what we can achieve.

dh and I bought a flat each when single. we sold them both when prices went crazy and bought a house mortgage free. a bit of inheritance helped with refurb costs. When I took my first mortgage I so overstratched myself I couldn't sleep for a few months. I never ever thought I could be in this lucky situation in such a relative short time. I feel very lucky as it was all down to crazy property price rise. Don't think we'll be moving for quite a while now. I'm 33, DH 42.

We paid ours off at the end of Jan when the 2-yr fix expired. Mid-30's. I smile every time I think about it!
Combination of things;

• we don't go out much, and never have. We would go out for meals but never went clubbing etc.
• don't smoke, I don't drink.
• not interested in fashion etc so don't spend huge amounts on that.
• am naturally frugal, and growing up my parents didn't have alot of spare cash.
• dh has a good job and earns quite alot, he works hard but he has also been lucky in that he has gone into a well paid role and enjoys it.
• we spent a few years as expats and while we didn't earn huge amounts (probably equivalent to a london salary for the jobs we were doing, as opposed to the privincial city salary that we had been earning) there wasn't alot to spend it on, so it mostly got saved.

I achieved it at age 30. Got into the property market fairly early (22). Moved once after that, then a third time to get mortgage free. Made good money on each property and then moved out of London to become mortgage free - to same size houe but which only cost about 60% of the price we sold our London house for.

Bought old places, did them up; kept mortgages quite small; not extravagant by nature; upped mortgage to buy old dive as a BTL. When we refurbished that, we transferred the little bit of mortgage we had left on our own home plus the extra we had borrowed onto that so now we are mortgage-free on home we live in.

Will probably go back to having mortgage when my dc are at school and I can devote more time to work but, for the time being, it is a huge relief not to have to worry about it.