Welcome to the Money Talks News Podcast!
In this episode, we're talking about paying off your mortgage early so you can put that money to better use.
Fewer than half — 40% — of homeowners are mortgage-free, according to a Bloomberg analysis. And many of those are baby boomers. Being mortgage-free is often seen as a big milestone on the journey to financial freedom. So, how do you become one of the favored few who pay off their mortgage before the 30-year term is up?
Let's find out.
As usual, host Stacy Johnson is joined by financial journalist Miranda Marquit. Listening in and sometimes contributing is producer Aaron Freeman. Today's guest is Andy Hill, founder of Marriage, Kids and Money. He paid off his mortgage early not too long ago and he's going to tell us exactly how he did it — and how it improved his finances and his life.
Remember, even though we sometimes talk about money and specific investments on this show, don't take them as recommendations. Before investing in anything or making any money moves, do your own research and make your own decisions.
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How to buy a home
As you get ready to buy a home, there are a lot of moving parts. Here's what you need to know about getting the best deal when you buy a house — no matter where you live.
What you need to know about mortgages
When you buy a home with a mortgage, you need to know how it works, and the best way to tackle it. Plus, you also need to figure out whether you think you'll actually pay off your mortgage, and whether you think it's a good idea.
Meet this week's guest, Andy Hill
Accredited Financial Counselor Andy Hill is the award-winning family finance coach behind Marriage Kids and Money - a platform dedicated to helping families build wealth and happiness.
Andy's advice and personal finance experience have been featured in major media outlets like CNBC, Forbes, MarketWatch, Kiplinger's Personal Finance and NBC News. With millions of podcast downloads and video views, Andy's message of family financial empowerment has resonated with listeners, readers and viewers across the world.
When he's not "talking money," Andy enjoys being a soccer dad, singing karaoke with his wife and relaxing on his hammock.
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About the hosts
Stacy Johnson founded Money Talks News in 1991. He's a CPA, and he has also earned licenses in stocks, commodities, options principal, mutual funds, life insurance, securities supervisor and real estate.
Miranda Marquit, MBA, is a financial expert, writer and speaker. She's been covering personal finance and investing topics for almost 20 years. When not writing and podcasting, she enjoys travel, reading and the outdoors.
Hey guys and welcome to Money Talks news, the podcast. In this episode, we're talking about paying off that mortgage early so you could put that money to better use. You know, fewer than half, about 40% of homeowners are mortgage free, at least according to Bloomberg analysis. And many of those are baby boomers like me being mortgage free is often seen as a big milestone in the journey to financial freedom. So how do you become one of those favored few who could pay off their mortgage
before that 30 year term is up? We're gonna find out today. I'm Stacy Johnson. As usual, my co-host will be financial journalist Miranda Marquet. Hello Miranda Marquet. Hey,
Stacy. So um I had a house once and a mortgage and I paid it off early by selling the house.
So that, that's one way to go about it listening in and sometimes contributing is our producer and novice investor, Aaron Freeman. Hello, Aaron. Hey, we have one mortgage to go.
I have none. And today we have a special guest who's been here before Andy Hill, founder of marriage kids and money. He paid off his mortgage early. Not too long ago and he's going to tell us exactly how he did it and how it's improved his finances and his life. Welcome back, Andy. Thank you both for having me back. I'm excited to be here. We're excited to have you before we start.
Folks. Remember this is not financial advice you hear on this podcast. So make sure to do your own research and consult your own experts before acting on anything you learn here. And hopefully that prevents us from being sued. Now, we can dive right in Andy. When did you pay off your mortgage? Um, my wife and I paid off our mortgage in 2017. So about seven years ago now, seven years and Andy, you sound like a young person if you don't mind my asking. How old are you? I am 42 years young today.
Today is your birthday?
I said, I said that funny. I'm 42. Let me answer that again.
I mean, you've got the answer then
you should have just rolled with it. You should have said yes, it's my birthday and I'm wasting it on this stupid podcast, right? I was, I should have gotten some birthday treats from you guys. Yes, you should have. Anyway, you're very young to have paid off your mortgage. I paid off my mortgage, but I did it when I was like, I don't know, 66 or something a few years ago.
Um, but anyway, you paid it off early and and how how long of a mortgage was it? And how quick did you pay it off? Yeah, we got a 15 year mortgage and we had the intent of paying it off in five years. We were getting a little excited about it but we were able to pay it off in just under four. So we got even more excited about it. Ok, now I'm gonna ask you specific stuff. So if I get too personal, you
just make up answers if you don't want to. Ok, so how was your, how was your
mortgage? I've, I've stayed in this paid off house.
Knows it's nice. It's nice. It's a
nice house. Yeah,
we got a uh, in 2013 we bought the house. It was valued at 350 we got around a $200,000 mortgage on it, 100 and $95,000 mortgage.
Ok, so we'll call it 200 grand. Um, and, and where do you live? We live in the Metro Detroit area, so maybe 30 minutes north of the city. Ok, so you had a $200,000 mortgage and you paid it off in a couple of years? A few years.
How did you do that?
Yeah, the, the first part was motivation. Uh, I would say is I, I really wasn't. Um, my wife and I were both working in the advertising marketing world at the time and we both weren't really that excited about what we were doing, but we had to do it because we had two kids and we were, you know, having this mortgage and just
the general aspects of life. And so we were motivated to want to not be in that situation anymore, eventually move towards a situation where at least one of us could go part time and then maybe eventually both of us could go part time working and doing work that we actually enjoyed. So the first part of it for us was, was just a general motivation. Now, as, as I recall, I, I listened to, uh, Andy's podcast about this very topic not long ago. As I recall, Andy, you were making about 100 grand.
Uh, me personally, uh, combined between my wife and I, we were making around 100 and $70,000 at the time and, and you know what, Andy, I may have been confused because you had somebody on your podcast who also paid off their mortgage. They were from Dave Ramsey, maybe that's who I was thinking of. So you had a, you had a pretty healthy income. 100 and 70
grand is pretty good and your mortgage is 200 grand. Now, how much, how much were your payments on a $200,000 mortgage? Because 15 year means higher payments. How much? So it was about $1900. We had a 3% interest. So it was a little low, it was lower, which is great. A lot of people who are holding on to those right now feel like they're gold, which is awesome. Uh So it was $1900 in total.
Now, wait, did you, did you have this goal in mind before you bought the house? Like you like, I'm gonna buy this house and I'm going to pay it off. So I'm choosing the 15 year mortgage and all that. Yes, you have that. Exactly right. We were living in my bachelor pad before that and my wife, my new wife moved in with me and she said this place is just ok. Andy, we're gonna have to look for something that's a little bit more appropriate for our family and a better community and I'm like, it's just fine. This place is totally fine, but she eventually convinced me
and so my uh agreement with her was, well, I don't want to feel strapped with this mortgage or a bigger house and more obligations, more bills, all the things that go into fixing a house and refurnishing it and everything like that. And so our agreement together was let's continue to try to live on around 50% of our income and pay this mortgage off in less than five years. So how much were you paying every month to pay it off?
Yeah. So on average, we were adding, we were adding these principal payments of at least $500 each month. But there were some months where I would maybe get a commission at work and that would go directly to the mortgage and we would get a tax refund that would go directly to the mortgage. We would sell things on Facebook marketplace or Craigslist. When our kids were out of their baby gear, we would just
sell that and then that would go towards the mortgage. So we had a full focus kind of idea you paid down $200,000 of principle in a few years. Yes. Yes, we did. It was very fast and it helped that we were motivated. Sometimes it's hard to find a mortgage that allow you to do that. Did it was that hard to hunt that one down or was that pretty easy? We had no prepayment penalty with our mortgage. That was something that we
into beforehand. And um, they were, they were happy to receive the, the extra principal payments. Now, we, we did have to make sure that they were directly going to the principal because sometimes if you send in an extra mortgage payment, they just think you're being really kind and they want you want to pay future payments to towards your, towards your, towards your mortgage. So you gotta be specific about that. Yeah, I've had that happen too, but
Aaron I could be wrong about this, but I, I think it's very rare to have a mortgage with a prepayment penalty. II, I have not heard of one. I mean, I'm not saying that they don't exist but isn't that pretty rare? Andy? From what I've seen? Yeah, it is pretty rare but it is good to look into. Um, especially as there's, you know, new lenders popping up every once in a while and sometimes it feels like your mortgage is being sold from lender to lender to lender. It's good to look into.
but it, it's amazing how much principle you put down. I mean, additional principle you put down because that's a, that's 200 grand is a lot when you're making 170 you did it in three years, we were definitely motivated and yes, that continued payment helped us to, you know, look at those amortization schedules, those calculators and see, wow, this is making a big difference and if we keep at this pace, we're gonna be able to pay this off, not in full
five years, but in, you know, three years and nine months. So let's keep at it. Uh It definitely helped that. Um we would any new money that came in any newfound money in our lives that helped to throw out the mortgage as well. So we at least did $500 per month as additional principal. But new money that came in uh definitely uh helped us to make this go faster.
Ok. Now tell me why, why was this so important and what difference did it make in your life to pay your mortgage off early. Yeah, you know, for, for us, um alongside investing early for our retirement, this was, this plan was gonna allow my wife to move from a full time job that she
really didn't enjoy to a part time job that she kind of enjoyed. And with that path, we would go from a two income household to a 1.5 income household because we didn't have as many expenses after paying off a mortgage. And it, it helped that we live frugally and also invested early for our retirement. So between us, you know, investing early for our retirement and paying off our mortgage early, my wife and I both now work part time
and it's been fantastic for our marriage. It's been fantastic for our relationship with our kids and our general mental and physical health. Well, it's just a couple of grand that you don't have to part with every month. That's true. But in combination with the extra principal payments we were making, in addition to the retirement investing we were doing, we found ourselves in a position where we had front loaded our retirement investing
so much that we also looked at that and said, wow, if we simply just pull back a little bit on our contributions or even stop, we can still hit our goals for retirement and between not making a mortgage payment anymore and massively decreasing our retirement contributions we were able to go from a two income household down to a combined one income household.
And I, I hear that too. I wrote a book many years ago. I mean, like 25 years ago called Life or Debt. And I gave an example of people who targeted their debts one at a time, ultimately paying off their mortgage and then taking that old mortgage payment and putting it into an S and P 500 index fund. Uh, and if you, because what happens is when you're used to paying all this money every month and then all of a sudden it's gone. Now you've got that extra money. What do you do with it? You invest it and you can become a millionaire that way you can pay off
a mortgage pretty fast. Uh, and then if you take those old payments and same with all the other debts, you pay off car loans, credit cards, blah, blah, blah, and you take all those old payments and then rechannel them into, uh, an S and P whatever and sound investments. You could end up being a millionaire at a pretty young age. Absolutely. Yeah. And we were able to hit that goal of a millionaire status by age 38. And at that point, we were reflecting back, it's like, ok, yes, this is just a number. But what does that mean? What is this allowing us to
and for us it's allowed us to buy more family time, buy more time for our relationship. And that's where we're focusing a lot more of our time now. A millionaire at 38. Doesn't that make you feel terrible? Miranda? Miranda's good. We've talked about that.
Miranda's ok without being a millionaire. I'm fine. I
just want to hear some jealousy coming through the microphone. Yeah.
No, I actually just got back from Puerto Rico. I'm ok. I'm, I'm
sunburnt and I got to swim in the ocean every day. The only sad thing is that it's very cold in Idaho Falls. So, so that's, that's the sad thing, but it's colder in Michigan. So,
well, it helps us a lot that, that we combine things together obviously, without my wife, you know, uh I would have a paltry net worth. Of course, you know, we do these things together, you know, we combine our efforts for our income and our, as you Randy, can she hear you right now? Because it sounds like she's literally five inches away from me. So you guys just,
this is gonna be good for our relationship. I'm telling you this is, this is the key. That's really funny. Ok, now I'm gonna address something that I, I hope that people picked up on when we were talking about your mortgage. It was 3%.
Uh You must get this a lot. What the hell are you doing? Paying off a 3% loan? Exactly. Yes. Um You know, it's, it's a tough thing to swallow right now, especially as rates are so much higher than 3%. So, it appears with somebody who has a 2% mortgage or a 3% mortgage that the idea of paying something like that off is nuts. Now, if, if I had to do it all over again,
um, I probably still would do exactly what we did, but I would make sure that our retirement investing was set. You know, we, we had front loaded so much that we were really going coast to retirement for the next 20 years after you do that. I mean, that's the natural next step for me, at least with regard to having a family and wanting to spend more time doing other things besides work
is that just eliminate the other debts in your life. So you don't have to work as much and that's, that's where mortgage freedom makes sense for me, especially as you're uh in a later portion of this financial journey. Is it the first thing that you should do? No, definitely not. There are high interest credit card debts you should be paying off. There are, you know, even uh high yield savings accounts, you should be taking advantage of to make sure
you've got money for emergencies and definitely investing for the future for your retirement needs. Uh should all come first before even considering paying off your mortgage. But once you're doing all those things and you feel pretty comfortable in your life. Eliminate that mortgage and it'll give you even more freedom to do what you want in life. Uh, did you, did you grow up in Detroit or was that also part of the decision in, in living there
ever since I was 10 years old? Uh, I've, I've lived in, in, uh, Metro Detroit. My dad worked for an automotive company so we traveled around quite a bit when I was younger. But, uh, yeah, it's been my home for 30 plus years now. What are taxes and insurance like there? Oh, not, not too bad. You know, our, let's see, we pay about 5 to $6000 in property tax per year.
And so even after we paid off that $1900 payment per month, um, we still make a call, it like 506 $100 payment towards just having the house between homeowners insurance and property tax. Yeah, I've got to say I was a little disappointed when I paid my mortgage off, Andy because it had been a goal my whole life. You know, I mean, I literally said when I pay my mortgage off, I'm gonna retire. And then,
and that's basically what people do. I mean, you know, at least, and then when I paid it off, I'm like, well, I still have to pay 1500 bucks a month or more for insurance and property. My property tax is about 10 grand and my insurance was about seven grand because I live in Florida by the water utilities, you know, updating the house. 10 years later. Your house looks older and your wife says, hey, we should, we should update this house again. Those costs are still there.
Yep, that's true. As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, yesterday I just paid somebody $1000 to pressure wash my backyard and roof and that's something I would have done myself before. But now I'm too old. So it's like it did. It really, I mean, I thought it would just be sitting around with, you know, money rolling in and no money going out. But, and, and obviously not having debt is better than having debt. But it was, it wasn't the catharsis. I thought it was going to be when I paid off, but you're enjoying your life, you're working. Right.
I know you like what you do. I think just sitting down on a couch and doing nothing. I don't know. I don't think anybody's, I think retirement's different. I think, I think we all want to have some purpose. We want to have a little bit of meaning and doing some work. I think I'm gonna be doing some type of work and it'll probably get me some money for a long period of my life. Yeah. Well, you know, my wife is much younger than me and, but I agree with what you said anyway. I mean, first of all, what am I gonna do all day when my wife's working because she's in the middle of her career.
Um, but also, yeah, you want to feel fulfilled, you know, and, and this is something I really enjoy doing. As a matter of fact, let me interrupt right there and tell you something I really enjoy doing, which is soliciting people to, for our sponsor, which I'm just about to do. Hold on guys. We are halfway through our show, which means it's time for us to pay a bill or two. We're gonna be right back after this quick commercial break to continue the step by step process. And he used to pay off his mortgage early and you can too, we'll be right back.
Ok? We are back. But before we start again, do me, do me a solid share this show with your, on your favorite social platforms and subscribe to our podcast. It takes you two seconds, but it really helps us. Ok? Now that my script says, let's keep picking Andy's brain. That seems, that seems a little intrusive to me. But Andy, we've established that you paid off your mortgage and, but how did you do this? Where did you marshal the resources? Because most people are gonna be worrying. Of course, I want to pay off my mortgage. But where the hell am I supposed to get the money to do it?
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the, the further we go into our lives, the, the more people, uh and companies are very good at, at getting our money. So I, I, if we're not paying attention to where it's going, I think that is a big opportunity for us. So the first thing that we did as a couple much to my wife, chagrin was to have a, a money date each month where we looked over the numbers and made sure we know exactly where our money was going because we had these big goals in mind. So
with that, we'd look at the numbers and see, you know, how much are we spending on food out at restaurants? You know, are, are we, are we are there ways for us to save with our grocery spending, you know, are we even using cable TV anymore? You know, can we go with high deductible insurance plans instead of the, you know, the lower deductible insurance plans so we can save a little bit more, a little bit more money. These, these types of things helped us to reduce our expenses,
you know, I definitely brought the wine and the pizza. So at least there was a reason for her to want to show up. Absolutely. Here's some advice for you. Should you ever be on the dating scene again? We hope that you won't be, but should you be, do not lead with this? And she reminds me of that pretty much every week. So,
so anyway, So you got together and you decide to try to figure out where you could save some money or, or, or spend less without hopefully destroying your quality of life and then putting that money toward that mortgage.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can only reduce so, so much though, you know, to your point, you gotta keep the marriage alive and have some fun. So you gotta look at increasing income as well, you know. So I got very motivated during this time. So I would work harder to hit my sales goals. If I had a bonus opportunity, I would work on getting those. We would do this little, uh, paycheck bind trick. You know, I got paid, uh, 26 times per year, pretty much every two weeks as opposed to the typical 24 times a year. And we would just agree that
those other two paychecks, we would just not live on those. And when they came in, we would use those to make a big principal payment every, uh, twice a year. So that ended up being a, a big mortgage impact, probably about $30,000 of our, of our pay down was just from that mind trick alone.
Yeah. A actually speaking of which I've written several times and we, and our website continually has articles like this, how to pay off your mortgage earlier. For those, for those who are listening, who don't, you know, not in sales don't make a ton of money there. Simple things you can do that are really gonna make a difference over time.
Like for example, um you know, the 13th payment thing where you pay your mortgage every two weeks, uh you pay half your mortgage every two weeks and, and what that, what happens is you, you'll pay, you know, 50 times or sorry, 50 weeks and then you're gonna have an extra mortgage payment at the end of that. So you'll have 13th mortgage payment every year by just by paying every two weeks instead of every month. So there are little things that you can do too besides just putting in whatever you can
uh to, to reduce your, your principal. You ever heard of that? The 13 monthly payment thing? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, any of these additional payments that you can make, make a huge difference in the long run. It's just like investing for retirement, the more you can do it earlier at compounds. It's the same thing with your amortization schedule, the more you can put in early, it starts to build up over time and then the closer you get to be paying it off, more of it's going towards the principal and interest. It's exciting,
you know, and I may be wrong about this because it's been many years since I've written about it. But I think that I think I remember saying that if you pay one extra mortgage payment every year 13 instead of 12 that you'll pay off a 30 year mortgage, eight years earlier. Now that, that may be wrong. But that's, that's what I remember. Does that sound about right? Yeah. It, it's, it makes a huge, little, little amounts can make a huge difference because, you know, even though you can't be like, Andy and pay off 200 grand in, in a couple of years you can still pay something extra.
Yeah. Even if you did it at 10 or, or, or, or you know, 10 or 15, this is, this is massively quicker than the majority of Americans for sure. Obviously, Andy and I bought houses a while long time ago during, you know, the 3% 2% 4% era. Um today, now everybody's, you know, looking at six and seven, are we doing this podcast to say, hey, you know, you can do this too. So you don't have to pay so much interest.
Yeah. Well, the more interest you're paying the better off, you are paying it off early, right?
That's what I'm saying. If you're paying 7% and your hopes in the stock market would make seven or 8%. I mean, it starts to look a little bit more comparable, right? But I gotta tell you, man, if I got a 3% mortgage today, I'm not paying it off. No way I'm earning 5% money market. I just wouldn't do that. That, that makes no sense
to me. Well, and I think it goes back to like, where your values are and what makes it helps you sleep at night. Right. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, Zambian
but ambient. But, uh, yeah, so, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't pay off my mortgage early either. We're, we're all here piling on Poor Andy. But at the same time I see why people are like, hey, I want, I just don't want to hang over my head. I want this, this mortgage expense
just off the books for me and then I can use that money for other things. And so I think that makes sense too. So it really comes down to once again is like, hey, what works for you? You know, and then also when you're talking about paying off your mortgage early, um you know, do we want to, you know, how hard is it to stick to a plan? Right? When you're saying, if I can, if I can just stick it out for 5 to 8 years and deny myself everything
and then pay off the mortgage, then I'll be happy like that, that can be difficult to do as well. So it really depends on like, hey, where are you at? What's going to work for you? Because for some people paying it off early, paying it off eight years early just with that like that plan where you're just like, ok, biweekly mortgage pay half of it twice a month. That's that'll still get you paid off early. That'll still save you. It'll
get you done with your mortgage eight years earlier than you would have. And that's still worth something. I
like that plan. I think. Maybe we are examples. Probably a little skewed because both my wife and I really didn't enjoy what we were doing for a living. Now, if you enjoy what you're doing for a living and your, your daily life is pretty great then, yeah, aggressively paying off your mortgage in under five years might make your life even harder.
Yeah, that it needs to be. So, yeah, it's a great point. Miranda was, it was another choice in that house. You thought this was your forever home or?
I think at that time when we were getting it, uh, this, this definitely felt like our forever home. We're still in it. It's 10 years now. I can see our, we've got a 12 year old and a nine year old. I see us being here well, after they graduate high school and college. So, yeah, absolutely. But now you got to move to Grosse Pointe. I mean, come on, you're a millionaire.
Funny enough. That's where I grew up. That's pretty, that is pretty funny, you know, Metro Detroit. Well, then I actually, you know, it's from, uh, that movie with John Cusack Grose Pointe Blank. That was, that was a big deal when we were in high school, man. Yeah, that was fun. To watch. Now listen, I've got an article here in front of me, this is
often times do you don't want to pay off your mortgage? Ok. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna read this to you and tell me what do you think? Now this one you've already alluded to and number one is you lack emergency savings. Obviously you need to have emergency savings before you start putting your money into something like a mortgage which is, I mean your house is a liquid. If you need money, it's going to be hard to get it out of your house, it's gonna be easy to get it out of the bank. So you wanna, you wanna have an emergency fund right?
Um, now here's something that I did that that's in this article you want extra liquidity? Ok. I had a whole bunch of money in the bank. Well, more than enough to pay off my mortgage I didn't pay off my mortgage because I thought maybe one day I'll want to do something with this money. So in 2012, the house next door came up for sale. I had a bunch of money, you know, because of what was happening, the market was cratering and I, so I bought the house next door for cash because you know, it was hard to get a mortgage then
so then I and I flipped it and made a few 100 grand.
So you know, having that liquidity helps me. Now, if it was just sitting there earning 1% which it was or less, then maybe that wouldn't have made as much sense. But I was able to take the money. I wouldn't have been able to do that. Could I have borrowed against my house to buy the house next door? I could have, but I'm not that type of person I wouldn't have, you know, because I wouldn't have wanted to jump through the hoops or have that much leverage.
So, you know, if you, if you need liquidity, that could be a situation or you desire liquidity, that could be a situation not to pay it off. Agree or disagree. I completely agree. Yeah. Locking it up in your house makes it very hard to get at whether you're gonna either home equity line of credit or sell the thing, which is,
those aren't great options. Yeah. Number three was earning a better rate by investing obviously, if you can earn 5% paying three is, is the arbitrage is very attractive, especially if that 5% comes risk free. Uh, like at a bank or, or at a treasury bill or something like that.
Um, lower taxes. Now, this used to be a bigger thing because, you know, I was, I was gonna say if you pay 3% it used to be that you're really paying 1.8 if you're in a 40% tax bracket because the, the, the write off of the interest. Uh, you know, that deduction is significant and it essentially reduces the, the interest rate that you're paying that is less important now, because now the standard deduction is so much higher.
Yeah, I, I've heard that 90% of Americans take the standard deduction. Now I'm taking it, I mean, there's just really nothing else you can do to make the itemized deductions. Um, also, now here's, here's an interesting one. Your mortgage is a hedge against inflation. So if you're, if you're paying 3% or whatever percent, you're paying
30 years from now, that that mortgage payment is gonna be a lot smaller in today's dollars than it is now. So, you know, the the bank is, your house is going up in value because of inflation,
but your mortgage isn't, isn't going up. It's your payments are the same. So it can be an actually truth be told the the best thing you could do mathematically in times of, of high inflation is to borrow money at a fixed rate.
So you comment on that,
I think it makes sense. Lock, locking something in for 30 years at extremely low rate, two or 3% can, can definitely help you, especially with the inflationary environment we've seen over the past few years. Uh That being said,
uh these decisions are, I would say less mathematical as that situation is and more emotional, the more emotional benefit that you get from. Not having that weight over your head anymore. Um, and the ability for you just to have lower expenses in general so you can make some better decisions for your, for your life. I
think, I think
the things that we lose track of is we're always talking about like, oh, money is just math. Well, no, it's also emotional. Like, let's not, let's not pretend like money isn't emotional at all and you just, it's all just math like because it's not
like, like I was saying, you know, I remember my parents going like if we ever pay this house off, you know, I mean, it's, it's an emotional thing to own your house free and clear.
Absolutely. Um Yeah, the other two things are real simple. I'll just go over them real quick one, your job is uncertain. Obviously you wanna have liquidity. If you're gonna lose your job, you don't want your, you don't want to have extra home equity. You wanna have cash in the bank if you're gonna lose your job and also having high interest debt, which you also alluded to and do you want to be paying off your 25% credit card before you pay off your 4% mortgage? Absolutely. Yeah, having the money in the bank I think is um, you know, whatever term you want to give it a few money or any other term just having that ability to
make some decisions for you with money in the bank is, is a big power move. Cool. So um do you still have a mortgage? Aaron
uh multiple properties? We have multiple properties but we kind of did something similar to what Andy did. Um Sonia, my wife had already owned a home and when we got together, she was like adamant about getting another one, but this was back in 2012 when things were dirt cheap and we picked up a cute little 21 for like, I think 80 or 90 grand
during that whole 3% era. And I was a spender as I've said many times on this podcast and both Sony and Stacy have reeled me in on that crap. So we did the same thing with not spending a lot looking at our budget and putting everything we had towards it and we, we paid it off relatively quick. Uh And the scale is the same because the incomes were different back then. Yeah, it can't be done. That's basically what I'm saying. What, what Andy's saying, if you, you have the mind and the, the discipline to do it, you can do it, you know,
you know, and, and this, this conversation will be complete until we bring Miranda in because Miranda is the person who doesn't have a mortgage because she doesn't own a house. And there is something to be said for that. I disagree with it. We, we've had this conversation several times but she doesn't have to worry about a mortgage. Right. Miranda.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it really goes, it really just depends on where you see your lifestyle and, and what kind of things matter to you. Uh Since my, my main values are convenience and, and flexibility
and a mortgage offers. None of those things and owning a house offers, neither of those things. Um Just because like, I don't want to deal with maintenance issues when my hot water went out. A couple of months ago, I sent a text to the maintenance crew uh at the apartment complex and within an hour I had hot water. I didn't have to like call around, I didn't have to figure out do price comparisons and I didn't have to wait
a couple of days for somebody to come out and fix my water heater. It was done within an hour. And um and then, you know, like I just,
I travel a lot. I, I'm gone a lot. And so having a contained apartment where I don't have to worry about all of the things that go with. Like let's prepare the house before I travel before I'm gone for two weeks. So for me, like my lifestyle, I'm, I'm much happier just, you know, I'm, I'm what they call Coasty. Uh If I never, if I never invest another dime, which I still invest, but if I never invest another dime,
um you know, by the time I reach the traditional retirement age, I will have plenty to retire. I will have more than a million dollars. And so, like, I'm fine without the house. And so I, yeah, so for me, it just doesn't, it just doesn't make sense with my lifestyle and, uh, the way I like my life to be lived, it just doesn't make sense.
And when I was the age of
and, and Aaron, you know, I was all about swinging a hammer, you know, and now it's like I just told you, I paid somebody to pressure wash which a chimpanzee can do, you know? But I just, I'm 68 years old. I don't feel like doing it anymore and this house doesn't take care of itself and it's, it's, it's damn near my age.
Yeah. And I've never, yeah. And I've never been a project person. Like I know people that are project people, they love to buy a house, they love to fix it up, they love to make it like their own. And I have never been a project person. I have never been somebody who enjoys working in the yard. Like none of that. Like none of that appeals
to me. And so, I mean, the best, the best thing I got is I've got a basil plant. I haven't killed it. And I, and when I'm ready for Caprese, I have fresh basil for my caprese. But I've got it in a self watering pot that, that I only have to water every two weeks. So, like,
I mean, it just, yeah,
well, you're the one eyed seed of a tumbleweed in the belly of a rolling stone. Ok, folks, we are out of time but we are never out of topic. Dig a little deeper. You're gonna find links to lots more info on our shows. And remember if your goal is to make more, to spend less to retire rich. Well, your online home is Money Talks news.com and don't forget to check out Miranda's online home as well. That is Miranda Mart dot
dot com. And of course, you want to visit Andy at his website. That's marriage, kids and money.com. If you got a question, comment or topic, you'd like to suggest, tell us you can email us at hello at Money Talks news.com and allow me to repeat myself one more time. If you like what we do, do something for us. Subscribe to our podcast. Takes you two seconds. Really helps us though. So if you like us, just sit there, show us and subscribe,
Andy, I don't care what anyone says. I like you. I think you're a great guy and I, I'm, I'm gonna be counting the minutes until you come back again. I appreciate that. I'm looking forward to it. I'm Stacy Johnson. I'm Miranda
Mark. I'm Aaron.
Thanks for hanging out with us guys. We're going to see you right here next time.