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In my last post I talked about why my spouse and I haven’t been able to make much progress on paying off our mortgage this year. This week I thought I’d dive into some of the reasons why we want to pay off our mortgage early and become totally debt-free.

To give you some more background on our situation, we purchased our home in January of 2021 for $186,000. Our starting mortgage balance was $179,000 because we didn’t put much money down. We had the money to make a larger down payment at the time. But we wanted to keep a bigger cash buffer on hand in case the house had any deferred maintenance or other hidden issues since it was built in the 1970s. We got an FHA loan because my spouse didn’t have the best credit at the time. We pay PMI, which won’t drop off until we refinance or pay off the mortgage. So far we’ve paid off $20,000 of principal and have a balance of $158,000.

Our interest rate is 4%, which is pretty low. But we still want to knock the mortgage out and get it paid off for peace of mind. I’ve had a lot of people online and in real life ask me why we’re bothering to pay off the mortgage when we could earn more in the stock market. I’m a personal finance writer, so I understand the opportunity cost of putting money into our mortgage instead of the stock market. We’re in our mid-twenties, so we could earn a lot of compound interest if we invested the money we’re using for mortgage overpayments instead. So why are we paying off the mortgage?

Why We Want To Pay Off Our Mortgage

The main reason we want to pay off our mortgage is for stability and security. My spouse moved around a lot and went through several evictions during childhood. My parents almost lost their house in the aftermath of 2008. These experiences have made us long for a home that we truly own that no bank or landlord can ever take from us.

The amount of debt we have gives both of us anxiety. We don’t like the feeling of having a six-figure mortgage hanging over our heads, especially since we both have medical issues. From the ages of 16 to 20, my heart condition and other health problems made it impossible for me to work or go to school. I had surgery to fix a hole in my heart, which made my heath situation more stable and enabled me to start my freelance writing business. But it’s possible that my health could decline in the future and make it harder to earn the same level of income.

My spouse also has health problems including dyslexia, celiac disease, and some after-effects from getting hit by a pickup truck as a pedestrian. Autoimmune diseases run in my partner’s family as well, so additional health challenges could crop up. Lowering our fixed monthly expenses by paying off our mortgage would make it easier to weather any hard times related to our health or job status.

Financial Flexibility and Peace of Mind

On a more positive note, becoming debt-free will also give us more financial flexibility to pursue the type of life that we want. My spouse would love to become self-employed eventually, and paying off our mortgage will help get us closer to that dream. We’ll be in a better position to pay for our own health insurance and live on variable income if we don’t have a mortgage.

We also think that paying off our home loan will help alleviate our financial stress. Although the money we spend on mortgage overpayments would earn more in the stock market, you can’t put a price on peace of mind. We don’t feel comfortable having debt, and paying it off is what we need to do to feel safe and secure.

We’re still investing for retirement and saving for other inevitable life expenses like house repairs and car maintenance. But we’re throwing any extra money at our mortgage to save on interest and get closer to being debt-free. Once the loan is off our plate in a few years, we’ll invest much more aggressively and start building a portfolio of rental properties.

Personal Finance Is Personal

At the end of the day, we’re highly motivated to pay off this debt and feel like it’s the right move for us. Personal finance is just that—personal. We all make different decisions based on our risk tolerance and life experiences. Beks, the last writer on this blog, paid cash for her house and acknowledged it wasn’t the “best” financial move. But she only had the stomach for low-risk financial strategies, which is how my partner and I feel as well.

What’s your motivation for paying off your debt? Share your reasons in the comments section below. I’d love to hear more about your debt payoff journey!

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Vicky Monroe

Vicky Monroe is a freelance personal finance and lifestyle writer. When she’s not busy writing about her favorite money saving hacks or tinkering with her budget spreadsheets, she likes to travel, garden, and cook healthy vegetarian meals.

Here’s Why I Haven’t Paid Off Much Debt This Year

by Vicky Monroe

Hello! My name is Vicky and I’m a new writer for Blogging Away Debt. To give you some background on my debt situation, my spouse and I currently owe $158,000 on our mortgage and are in the middle of paying it off. I personally strive not to have debt of any kind, although it’s definitely easier said than done!

Last year my spouse and I managed to knock about $16,000 off of our mortgage balance by making monthly overpayments. This year we haven’t been doing quite as well. We managed to start strong, making mortgage overpayments of $3,000 in both January and February. But in March, April, and May, we haven’t been able to make any mortgage overpayments at all, which is pretty disappointing.

Some large expenses including our wedding knocked us off course. My spouse and I got married in March. Although we had a small wedding in our backyard with only a few friends and family members present, the costs really added up.

Just getting my hair and makeup done was $300. Our wedding bands cost us $750 in total, not to mention food, flowers, and decorations. All in all, our wedding cost us a couple grand.

We also ended up going to Nashville for our honeymoon, which was a big budget buster. We had planned on staying close to home and going to Minneapolis to save money. But we’ve always wanted to visit Nashville, so we decided to take a longer road trip because you only go on a honeymoon once!

Although my parents used their Marriott points to pay for our hotel room as a wedding gift, we still had to cover parking and resort fees, which added up to $50 per night. Food and entertainment were much more expensive than we thought they would be.

We used to live in Massachusetts before we moved to rural Michigan about a year and a half ago. I was amazed to find out that food in Nashville was about the same price as in downtown Boston! Isn’t the South supposed to be cheap? Overall we went about $1,500 over budget on that vacation. But we’re not big travelers, so we probably won’t go on another big trip for at least a couple years.

Then when we got back home, my dad needed to borrow a couple thousand dollars from me because his commission checks have been low (he’s a salesman and so is my spouse). He couldn’t cover his bills on his own so I felt like I had no choice but to float him the money. I had to take the cash out of my emergency fund to help him out. So instead of making mortgage overpayments, I had to spend the next two months refilling our emergency fund.

Now here we are at the end of May and I haven’t been able to make any mortgage overpayments since the end of February. I hate owing so much money on our house, especially with rumors swirling about an upcoming recession. Although we have an emergency fund, I (somewhat irrationally) feel like we’re one job loss away from losing the house.

My parents came close to losing their house several times after the 2008 crash. I think growing up in that financially precarious environment has made me very conservative and debt averse. I didn’t even go to college because I was too afraid to take out student loans!

I’ve done some therapy in the past to try to overcome my financial fears and it helped a lot. But I think my parents being in a financially unstable situation again has brought some old childhood fears back to the surface. Not being able to make mortgage overpayments for a while has also made me feel a little nervous.

I scheduled an appointment with a therapist for this coming Thursday to work through some of these emotions, so I’ll let you know how that goes! Luckily I have good insurance and I’ll only owe a $20 copay for each session.

I think we should be able to make a $2,000 mortgage overpayment next month and start getting back on track. So hopefully seeing my mortgage balance go down a bit will also help with the anxiety I’m feeling.

Have big expenses and life events ever caused you to pause your debt payoff plan? Do any of you get a little anxious when you get off course? Let me know in the comments.

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