We Are Finally Mortgage Free!

We are finally mortgage free and believe me, there is no greater satisfaction than having a paid off home! This is a major step on our road to financial independence. Our home was our last major debt so we are also now completely debt free!

A big reason for our change in approach to aggressively tackle our mortgage was all of the risks and uncertainty following the Covid pandemic and the world essentially falling apart.

In a previous post, I listed My Top 7 Reasons for Paying Off the Mortgage. If you haven’t read it. Do so now. I won’t go into those reasons here but suffice it to say that a lot of my concerns expressed in that post have now come to pass.

Major Global Financial Risks

I’ve made no secret about all the risks that I see in the global economy and I believe that all the financial advice we get at the local bank branch or from our financial advisors will destroy the financial well-being of everyday people.

The financial industry as a whole has been constantly shifting their views for the past few years as to what they think will be the most likely course of future events.

Faced with housing prices declines of nearly 20% (to date!) and sales falling off a cliff, what happened to the bullshit narrative that housing prices would hold up because we had a “shortage” of homes!

Now the latest load of BS is that the economy is in for a soft landing! I’m betting my chips against that.

A lot of the risks out there involve unquantifiable Black Swans like:

the possibility of a major world war erupting with Russia and China;

the collapse of the Eurozone;

the collapse of Japan;

high or even hyperinflation globally for a decade or more; and finally,

a Global Contraction like a major Recession or even a Depression.

These are real risks to the global economy and global financial system. I don’t think for a second that Canada will be immune to any of these things.

For more information about global risks check out what the IMF is saying.

Financial Prepping for an Uncertain Future

Given this level of uncertainty I think people would be prudent to get their financial house in order. There are certainly times where the risk/reward will work in our favour. Now is not one of them.

Just ask anyone who bought a home before February 2022 how they’re doing. Or ask the tech and crypto investors how things are going. People are getting crushed and I see more pain ahead as the contagion affects the more mainstream markets like the stock and bond indices.

So I think people need to become more resilient. That means reducing or eliminating debt and building a cash cushion. We decided to diversify our investments beyond the traditional 60/40 or even our dividend stock portfolio. We now hold more cash and things like precious metals as a hedge against all the uncertainty.

As asset bubbles deflate or collapse, I believe there will be lots of buying opportunities for the patient investor.

What I Learned From Paying Off the Mortgage

Part of the fun of having a PF blog is sharing and learning from the experiences of others. So I thought I’d share a bit of what I’ve learned about PF over these past few years.

I guess the biggest thing I learned is to not follow the crowd. While everyone was caught up in the crypto frenzy, I was focused on paying off the mortgage.

And to me that’s what personal finance and wealth building should be: boring, routine and automatic. The crazier things got in the markets the more cautious and conservative I’ve become.

Finally, I think it’s important to recognize that you don’t have to shoot for the moon on every investment or strategy. At a certain point on our financial journey it’s important to recognize that we’re winning…so why take a big risk like borrowing against a home to goose stock market returns?

Save, Invest, Build Wealth and Prosper

In case you’re wondering here’s where we park our money and some financial services that we use (please note these are affiliate links where we receive small compensation for signups and sales):

For our precious metals we use Silver Gold Bull because they price match and offer fast, insured, delivery.

For our Daily banking we use Tangerine because they offer incredible products and no-fee banking.

For investing we use a combination of TD Waterhouse (for legacy investments) and Questrade because it offers incredible value with low cost stock purchases and free ETF purchases.  If you haven’t done so already, check out my Questrade Review to see why it’s the best deal around.  Get $50 in Free Trades when you signup for Questrade through this link.

Thanks for reading this: We Are Finally Mortgage Free! Post