In this article, you will learn seven ways we are able to pay off our mortgage faster. Our goal is to have it paid in seven years or less. These tips can be applied to your daily financial goals as well.
I grabbed bread sticks from Pizza Hut in Target, giving in to a comfort food during a stressful time. It was my lunch break from managing the Starbucks in Target.
My husband had called and said he thinks he finally found a house I’m going to like. It was right down the road from my work.
I took those greasy delicious sticks and met him in the driveway in less than a minute.
After looking at so many houses over the past few months I knew this was the one as I ate that breadstick, wishing I could dip it in the sauce. There was no time for that. This was the one.
I never thought I would want to pay a mortgage off. I was under the impression you bought a house and you paid a mortgage until you retired.
Thanks to our amazing debt free journey, which you can read here, I decided to pay off debt with my husband, and get rid of this mortgage loan over our heads.
Discuss It
The first thing my husband and I had to do was discuss it. We hashed out all the details. We talked about what we wanted our life to look like in a year, three, five and fifteen years down the road. We set goals for what we wanted to achieve financially.
We looked at our goals and saw the importance to paying off our mortgage would be in achieving those.
So get together with your partner and talk about it. What would your financial situation look like to have your mortgage paid off in seven years?
How is your current budget allowing you to pay off your mortgage?
Paying off the mortgage is not the right option for everyone. It’s kind of how I view blogging. Anyone can start a blog and try to make money, but not everyone is going to succeed at it. It’s just not right for everyone.
Many financial experts will tell you to put your first dollar toward investment. Trust me we wrestled with that when my husband’s friend who is in the investment business told us that. Yet, we both felt so uneasy just saying out loud we should invest instead of paying off our mortgage.
We knew we had to pray over the situation. As Christians, we had to seek the direction God was leading us to. Still, when these things come up I am reminded that it’s God asking us to do this. Of course, there are benefits to paying off your mortgage, even if it is not trusting in God moment for you.
I can’t share this process with you without including the fact that our faith guides our decisions and every time we give up our control and trust the outcome turns out greater than we could have ever imagined.
A British Author, Jill Brisco said something like this that stuck with me. I love remembering that you will probably not stay in one place forever, but it’s important to give everything during that time period until you are moved to your next mission.
“Go where you’re sent, stay where you’re put, unpack, and give what you’ve got until you’re done.”
We lived in our farmhouse for almost a whole year when we decided to commit to paying off our mortgage. It was literally just two months of paying extra on the mortgage we received a letter in the mail.
It was telling us our new mortgage payment was increasing $350 a month. It was to do with an incorrect calculation of our taxes when we closed on the home.
This could have been devastating and put us in a funk for a couple days. We knew that God was still asking us to pay extra on the mortgage. He was providing the funds to do so, we continued to obey. Stay committed.
Pay Off All Consumer Debt First
After we talked about everything we knew this wouldn’t be an option if our consumer debt wasn’t paid off first.
You can read here for the top reasons you shouldn’t put extra money on your mortgage until other debts are paid.
It took us years paying off our debt, but starting my own blog is a huge reason we are able to make extra mortgage payments.
Related:
- How we Paid off $52k in debt in two years
- 11 Reasons Why You Are Failing at Your Budget
- Resources to Help You Earn a Steady Income Blogging
Forgoing DisneyWorld Trips
Sometimes the pain of seeing so many other people take trips during the long winter break, has me thinking, should I be doing that with our kids?
Then I fast forward to think about my kids when they are 8, 9 even 10 and how a trip to Disney or a big family vacation trip during the winter would be to them at that point. Instead of spending money when they will only remember it from a picture.
That trip when my kids are 8 would be a debt-free, all paid for trip.
It’s also good to ask yourself, is Disneyworld a place you would truly enjoy? I never went as a kid but having all girls I instantly thought it would be amazing because they love princesses.
Yet, I started looking into Disney and seeing how jam-packed it is with people, and the prices and I started to think maybe Disney isn’t the best vacation spot for my family. Be careful not to get caught up in what you think others expect from you.
You know what will make you and your family happy, what they will enjoy. If it is Disney great, if it’s not that is great too.
Either way a vacation debt free is a great vacation.
Got a Second Income and Put the Entire Thing to Our Mortgage.
The great think about blogging is you can bring in MULTIPLE streams of income. You never want to just rely on one income when you start a blog.
For us this is amazing. We rely on one income from my blogging business to pay extra on the mortgage.
You can set up any type of secondary income that you are bringing in to go right to your bank account. It was easier when I got a part-time job to help pay off our debt. As soon as the money was direct deposited we put it in savings to go towards our debt. That way we weren’t tempted with a larger number in our checking account.
I also completely stopped checking our checking account. Yep, that’s right. In fact, I haven’t looked at our checking account in over a year. For me, when I would see my husband’s overtime I would head to Target’s clearance section.
I needed it I said.
I’ve come a long way since, but I have trained myself to know exactly how much money we have coming in each week and how much is going out. I also completely trust my husband to put extra money on the mortgage and into our savings account. It is important to know your strengths and weaknesses.
Related:
- 11 Reasons You’re Failing at Your Budget
- How to Stop Emotional Spending
- How We are Living on a $100 a Month
Weekly Discussions
When thinking about paying off the mortgage you need to discuss your finances weekly. Of course monthly is better than not at all. If you chose monthly you may have a situation where one person is going to Tim Hortons every week and it doesn’t get brought up until you realize they spent $80 that month just in coffee and donuts.
Yes, that was us and no it was not me at Tim Horton’s. 🙂
Does that number sound high? That’s about $20 a week. Only $2.82 a day if you bought something every day. When you break it down like that, it doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
When you say you’re spending $80 a month on coffee it doesn’t sit well.
Be honest with everything that you are spending. Learn from the splurges and hold each other accountable. Not only will this bring you closer to your financial goal of paying off the mortgage it will bring you closer as a couple.
And we all know there is always room in the budget to feel closer to your spouse.
Lump Sums towards the Mortgage
Work out your budget so that your extra tax returns go to the mortgage.
When we decided once and for all to live debt free we put every extra penny on our debt. The debt snowball is very effective. This helps you decide which debt to start paying first and why.
Once you get into the mindset of always putting your extra income to your debt you’ll see the effects faster.
Don’t Put EVERYTHING on the Mortgage.
I tend to be very goal orientated and competitive. If I make a goal I want to do everything I can to achieve it. Of course being a wife, mother, work at home mom, things come into the path to derail you. So if you are similar in that you want to pay your mortgage off don’t put every last dollar on the mortgage.
Related:
Since this is one of the “good” debts it is also a smart idea to still put money aside for savings. We always tithe 10% every week and try to save 10% of our income each week.
You want to add money to a savings account for the moment when you have a big expense come up. You know when the washing machine breaks or you need a part for the car. The goal is to have a savings account where you can go to for the cash to pay for those derailments.
I started to think instead of saving more we should put MORE on the mortgage. Thankfully my husband is the saver more than I am- which is the reason I stopped checking our account.
I like a loose plan he likes a safe plan. You want to prepare for the worst, but also enjoy the now.
If you are thinking about paying off your mortgage I hope our experience has helped you to decide which way to go. Still feeling uncertain? Pray. Give yourself time, and trust in the path God is leading you to, not your family, friends or emotions.
The sacrifices you make now will lead to a greater reward. It kind of goes like this, when you are praying for something specific, let’s say courage to face one of your greatest fears. God doesn’t give you courage the moment you are about to face this fear, he tells you to go. It’s after you face the fear when you obeyed his words courage is waiting for you.