Why the mortgage?

If we're being honest, it had never occurred to me to pay our mortgage any faster than the monthly payment. We were going to to finish paying off our mortgage (at the typical thirty year pace) in 2043, when I was 53 years old. That's ALOT of life spent with this mortgage as our largest monthly expense, for a starter home.

So, when I give Dave Ramsey credit for telling us that it was an option, it's because no one had ever mentioned it us in person, but Dave Ramsey can't have full credit, because the only reason we're committed to seeing this goal through to completion is because we saw it clearly in the Bible.

Proverbs 6
"My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth...

Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler."

When I read those verses God says to me, "You owe someone $54,362.40. As fast as you are able, like your life depends on it, I want you to pay them the money you owe them."

Do you know how fast an animal that is being hunted would run? For its life. There's no room there for apathy. There's no room for retail therapy or exceptions.

If you think we're paying off the mortgage because it's fun, you misunderstand. If you think we're paying off the mortgage because it's our fastest track to wealth, you misunderstand. The borrower is servant to the lender (Proverbs 22:7), and we're tired having to serve a mortgage company every month. The end goal isn't wealth. The end goal is for us to owe no man anything, but to love him (Romans 13).

If you'd like to hear some of the practical steps we've taken to pay off our mortgage as quickly as we can, I blogged about that here.