The Thrill of being Mortgage Free!

This past May our family accomplished a huge goal - we paid off our mortgage!  I remember sitting in our lawyer's office 12 years ago and being dumbfounded when he said we could pay off our home in 12 years time.  I must admit, I was completely a skeptic - especially since we were living on one meager income.  Howevever, we ended up doing just that, so here is our lawyer's advice on paying down your mortgage.

• Put an extra $100 on each and every mortgage payment.  "If I gave you 5 $20's and you $100 bill", he said to my husband and I, "you would spend them completely differently."  How true.  He went on to explain that if we consistently put an extra $100 on each and every payment, we would not miss it out of our budget and we would reach our mortgage free goal.

• Push yourself to enter a 25 year mortgage (or less) and make bi-weekly payments, not monthly.  This in and of itself will pay the mortgage down more quickly.

• Pay cash (real paper money here, folks) for everything!  Pay with the bills and put all the coins in a jar.  At the end of the year, take the jar of coins and make a lump sum payment on your mortgage.

Admittedly, there were sacrifices we made along the way (no fancy vacations for this family), but now we own our home - every square inch of it - at twice the value of what we paid for it twelve years ago.   We made some financial mistakes along the way (like not always paying cash) but the thrill of true home ownership and the example this is to our kids was worth it all.  Now we can truly chase our dreams!