How to pay off a mortgage faster
I’ve been to many parties; birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, engagement parties, 50th-anniversary parties, but this past weekend I attended my first mortgage burning party. The invitation was quite simple, “Come over and celebrate that I have paid off my mortgage!”
What an achievement! I arrived at my friend’s house (her name is Chantale), with a bottle of wine and many questions. There were about a dozen people in attendance and when we all got settled around her dining room table, I could not contain myself, I had to know how she paid off this mortgage in 5 years, something that can usually take people 25 years to achieve.
OK, so let’s start with the full picture:
Type of house - Three story townhouse
Price for the house $450,000
Location: Montreal, Canada
Downpayment: $200,000, YES this is s a HUGE sum of money, Chantale saved for 15 years for this downpayment
Chantale is a Type A personality, so when she decided that she wanted to buy a house she chose to cut down on going out, cut her gym membership and began to run outdoors, cooked more dinners at home and took on a side job doing marketing for local companies. She did this for 10 years until she saved the $200,000. When she saw the house that she wanted, she plunked down the $200,000 on a $450,000 house started her journey to paying off a $250,000 mortgage in 5 years.
This got me thinking about what I learned from Chantale and wanted to share her mortgage busting approach, here is what I learned:
1 - Make bi-weekly mortgage payments (and add an extra payment)
When Chantale got her mortgage, she secured a 25 year amortization and then decided to pay the mortgage twice a month, also known as bi-weekly payments.
Each payment she added in an extra $200 , this move shaved off 5 years off her mortgage.
2- Make an annual lump sum payment
Chantle’s mortgage was with the CIBC bank, and this bank allows mortgage borrowers to apply an annual lump sum payment, up to 10% of the original principal amount on the mortgage. This means that for 5 years, Chantale put down a lump payment of $20,000 on the mortgage anniversary and this lump payment was applied directly to the principal of the mortgage.
How did Chantale get this ‘extra’ $20k a year? Since she has a full time job, and fortunate to obtain a bonus each year, she placed the bonus in her Retirement account (RRSP - a 401K for my American readers) and used the tax refund (usually 10-25%) to put towards the annual lump sum payment. Check out the best ways to use your annual tax refund.
3- Kick off a side hustle and place the funds towards the annual lump payment
Chantale is an amazing creative writer, so she took on a side hustle writing marketing content for a number of companies from around the world. When I asked how she got connected with these companies, she told me about Fiverr - it’s a crowd sourcing site. She responded to creative writing jobs and and secured contracts. She did the work in the evenings and on weekends and saved each contract payment and put the funds towards the annual payment.
4- Cut Cable TV
Chantale got rid of things the she felt that she did not need, like Cable TV. By cutting the cord this saved her $129 a month and she redirected these funds directly onto her mortgage payment. She purchased an internal antenna, by Terk for $99 and she was able to obtain 12 stations. In the 10 years that she cut cable she saved $15,480.
Result:
So by changing her payments schedule, adding in new payments, Chantale paid off her house in 5 years! I know, super crazy but also super exciting, isn’t it!?
Your turn:
Click here to see how much faster you can pay off your mortgage. Once you completed the calculation, share how many years you can possible shave off your mortgage; lets #CrushMortgage !