I have a weird family history in that my fathers kids from another marriage were estranged for my whole life and I only recently met them and now we are pretty tight and see each other at least once a year.
Anyways, I just saw them a few days ago and learned an interesting tidbit.
During a conversation about her finances, my sister told me our brother (age 35) has already paid off his mortgage. He paid it off in 2 years.
According to everyone who knows him, my brother has always been cheap, frugal, thrifty. My father was the same way. I THOUGHT I was like my dad because I was financially minded and always a little frugal but my brother takes it to a different level with the craigslist, freecycle, and coupons. I always agreed with my brothers mindset to look for free before you pay, find the best deal, use money wisely- and my brothers wife has commented I am like him a lot with my way of financial thinking.
Anyways, of course I was stunned to hear they paid off their mortgage in 2 yrs. They sold his townhouse that he had bought before he was married and I don't know what kind of down payment he was able to put down. They bought their current house maybe 5 or 6 years ago and immediately only lived off his income while they applied the wife's entire teaching salary to the mortgage. It took them 2 years to pay off the mortgage. They had their first kid after the mortgage was paid off.
They have lived mortgage free for years now and each year that I have known them they make 1 large improvement in the home. They added a pool with a beautiful deck, they added an addition, they replaced the kitchen appliances.
I am writing this because primarily I am celebrating that for me, this is proof that OUR PLANS WORK! All these thrifty plans, these frugal tools, the wisdom all collectively allows people to live life completely debt free!
Everything my brother and his wife do...all of us savers do! All the wisdom we spread to one another about "dont buy a house bigger than you can afford...pay in cash...use coupons.."- that WORKS!
It sure was nice to actually see a person actively, publicly following a religion I have been secretly trying to learn - and it WORKS!
After being surrounded by financially irresponsible people (just about all my friends) it's a breath of fresh air to see the battle to be debt free can be sucessful. And I am happy BB heard this conversation too- he was really impressed to see that financial diligence really pays off. I have new found respect for my older bro and look forward to really asking him for financial advice in the future.
All our effort is not in vain!
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the ideas in the book are the same as everyones here, and the same as your brothers. live cheaply and pay it all on the mortgage, or live off one income and apply one to the mortgage.
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