Why I'm Paying Off My Mortgage Early - Single Moms Income (2024)

Last night, I was having one of those nights where I couldn’t sleep because of the mass wave of random thoughts entering my head.

It started earlier that day when I made a list of all of our financial accounts, our budget, income, and how much was going into each investing account and each saving account. I decided to do this after Jamie made an offhand comment about not knowing what we were saving. (Even though I tell him all the time and he just never pays attention. Men….*insert eye roll*)

Luckily, he and I have the same views on money for the most part and I take the lead when it comes to the handling of the finances. He’s happy as long as he has enough money for his various hunting stuff and gets to eat out at work once a week. This system suits me just fine.

Anyway, I listed out everything that we had and then on the next page I listed what goals we will be working on. The big goal right now is that as soon as we sell our old house we’ll be paying off the new mortgage.

My plan has us comfortably paying the mortgage off in eight years. And if we were to really try hard we could do it in five.(This is as long as my income stays at least $4,000 per month.)

As I laid in bed thinking about paying off the mortgage I also started thinking about how most people in the financial space think it’s stupid to pay off a mortgage with a low interest rate since you might be able to earn more by investing.

But here’s the thing: I don’t care.

Why I’m Paying Off My Mortgage Early

Paying off a mortgage is a for sure thing. I’m for sure getting a 4% return. If I invested my money I could get an 8% return, or I could get a negative 8% return. The stock market doesn’t come with a guarantee.

But this isn’t about returns anyway!!

The thing is, if our mortgage was paid off and for some odd reason I lost all of my income we could live off of Jamie’s income without a problem.

(If you’re new here I got remarried earlier this year. Jamie = new husband. You can read more about that part of my lifehere.)

Another thing – a lot of the people who argue for the invest it, rather than paying off the mortgage, are the people on the early retirement bandwagon. But believe it or not, not everyone in this world cares about early retirement.

Jamie for instance could care less about early retirement. He likes his job and I imagine he would be downright miserable if he quit working. As for me I already feel like I’m in early retirement. While I am technically still working, I immensely enjoy what I do and at this point feel like I could do this for the rest of my life.

Working for us does not equal a lower quality of life.

Also as far as retirement savings Jamie is way ahead of me. He has a pension plan, contributes to another State retirement account, plus we’ll have my investments and when I get old enough, my social security.

We live in rural Ohio. The cost of living is low. Once the mortgage is paid off (and the old house is sold) our expenses will be less than $2,000 per month and that’s living a pretty good life. (One of the blessings of living in a low cost area!)

So while I’ll still be contributing to my retirement and investing accounts plus the girls’ college funds, for the next eight years a big chunk of our disposable income will be going to killing the mortgage.

YouGotta Do YOU

These thoughts have just made me want to remind you all – there is no one right way to do things.

Some people will think I’m stupid for wanting to pay off my mortgage early, while other people will totally get it. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. I’m the one living my life and the decisions I make are to benefit me and my family.

Everything that you read should be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, on this blog I’m writing from my own perspective. And I’m only writing about the things that worked, or didn’t work, for me. That’s why you don’t see any posts about debt on this blog. I’ve never been in major debt so I don’t feel comfortable writing on it.

What’s on this blog are my life experiences. What has worked for me might work for you and it might not. We are all in different stages, have different goals, and well, just have completely different lives!

When you read financial advice (even from gurus like Dave Ramsey) take it with a grain of salt. Pick the parts that will work for you and leave the rest.

If you follow somebody else’s plan word for word you might make a terrible mistake like costing yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars because you have a bad credit score or not paying off your mortgage because others say you should instead invest your money.

You need to do YOU.

I know this post was supposed to be about why I’m paying off my mortgage early but I just want to get the point across – we are all different. Make individual choices that benefit you. Create the life you want! Don’t create the life someone else says you should have.

So that is why I’m choosing to pay off my mortgage early. And I sincerely hope that you are putting some serious thought into your financial decisions and doing what works for you and not blindly following other people’s advice.