Here on my site, I have always tried to be very transparent with you guys about my finances. Even though some people see speaking about money as rather uncouth, I certainly do not. For me, I won’t openly publish specific figures and amounts online, but I have no qualms speaking about my past or present financial position.

With that said, today I want to talk to you about our journey to becoming mortgage free. For me, when we first bought our home and we had a long 30-year mortgage looming over our heads, I felt shackled. I hate the thought of debt and I knew that I wanted to do whatever we could in order to be mortgage free as soon as possible. In this post I am going to share with you why that journey was so important.

 

 

My upbringing with money.

One thing that I have always being incredibly transparent with is my upbringing and how money was in our household. I grew up in a single parent household and we were always tight on money. There were weeks when we would eat plain pasta or toast for tea because we couldn’t afford anything else. Looking back, I know there is a lot of trauma that I have held onto because of that.

When I reached my teenage years, I was very aware that my mother had fallen into arrears and we subsequently lost our home.

That was the point where I stepped up. I had no choice but to grow up, help our financial position and take a hold of managing our money. What stemmed from that point was a period of my life where gaining control of my finances was not only a benefit, but essential.

 

The things that I learnt from those experiences.

What I learnt from my experience was how to manage money. Because my mother, god love her, was very much a bury your head in the sand kind of person, I worked hard to be the opposite. From a very young age, I saw any form of debt as a burden and something that spelled uncertainty. Don’t get me wrong, I know that this is very much an issue that has stemmed from instability in my upbringing, and I have tried to work on it when I have had therapy for CBT. However, there is certainly a part of me that can’t find the negatives in knowing my finances inside out and wanting to get out from underneath a mountain of debt.

 

Striving to be debt-free.

Because of my upbringing, paired with my learnt behaviour, I quickly realised that even with our mortgage, I didn’t want that impending debt to loom over us for the foreseeable future. I know that just the fact that we are in a position to be able to make overpayments is an incredible luxury. For me, my main aim for every expenditure in my life is to be 1005 debt-free. That is why I pay for my cars cash, only as and when I have the disposable money. I don’t put anything on a credit card. And I developed a clear plan to get out from underneath our mortgage.

 

How we are aiming to be mortgage-free.

For my husband and I, we know that striving to hit this milestone will not be an overnight thing. Nor do we want to cut our spending by such an extreme degree that we don’t have a life anymore. We could go full frugal and cut holidays, days out and any luxuries that we enjoy. However, that is certainly not how we are doing things around here. Instead, we overpay in increments that suit our lifestyle and our budgets. Don’t get me wrong, it still does seem like a sacrifice at times and there have been times when I would love to spend that overpayment in other areas, but it is always on a ‘nice to have’, not an essential.

 

Why it means so much to me.

I know that many people will look at this post and not be able to empathise at all. I know when we first got the keys to our home, my husband certainly didn’t see eye to eye with me regarding my views. However, this means a lot to me. The thought of debt is something that is so ingrained in me that I don’t think that it will ever just pass. And don’t get me wrong, I know that some people are all for living in the moment and money being better in your bank account than banks, but that isn’t the case for me.

 

As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this post and learning more about our journey to becoming mortgage-free. It was something that we were both very focused on and worked hard to achieve. Along the way we learnt how we could make sacrifices to reach the end goal, without missing out or feeling like we were stuck paying off an incredible amount of debt.

I want to hear from you guys in the comments below. What do you think about the post that I have shared, and do you have any personal financial ambitions of your own?