How We Got a Mortgage Free Home

Part One

While most people dream of owning a big beautiful home, I dream of owning a small home without any debt. For me the idea of never having to pay rent again and continuing my debt-free lifestyle means being free. Without that simple payment in my life, I am free to do whatever I please and always have a place to go home to. The financial pressures of making a lot of money become minimal. Additionally, owning an off-grid home means that utility costs are also minimal. Having a small home means having a small footprint, buying less things to fill it up with and less space to clean! (I really don't like cleaning.)

My husband and I bought our first home in 2007, right after we married. We used money gifted to us for our wedding on the down payment of a sweet mountain home in Penasco, New Mexico. It was fairly inexpensive for NM at $165K because it was very rural and far from most amenities. The closest village was 5 miles away, but it didn't have more than a gas station, a Family Dollar, a school and a post office. There were about 3 restaurants and a theater that was used for circus school. It was charming but for most things we had to drive to the nearest town of Taos, about 50 minutes away over a mountain pass.

You might also note the year in which we bought our home, just before the real estate bust. We lived there for another six years until we grew tired of all the driving and decided we wanted to be closer to Taos. When it came time to sell, we lost a lot of money and I became very jaded by home ownership.

With a mortgage, most of your payments go into your interest first. Let's say you buy a $200,00 home with a 30 year loan at 4% interest, at the end of 30 years you end up paying about $165,000 in interest alone. So your $200,000 home is actually $365,000 and that doesn't even take into account the amount of money you had to spend on improvements and new appliances and repairs over the thirty years.(Source: Bankrate.com online calculator) Also, you have to wait 30 years to pay off your home and until then, you are in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars to the bank. I know for most people, that feels perfectly normal, but not for me.

I also know that for most people, living in a 750 sq. ft. off-grid straw bale home on a desert mesa would not feel normal at all. We live in a consumer driven society where owning bigger is better and having more is an opiate for our feelings of spiritual emptiness. Our fear of pain and rejection drives us to consume despite how it hurts us psychologically, financially and environmentally. It is easier to fill our soul with things than to have to look within and deal with all of our emotional baggage. While most people think a big home is dreamy, I think a big home is burdensome.

I am fortunate to live in a small rural town where there are communities of people who live off-grid. Taos, New Mexico is famous for being the home of the Earthship. The Greater World Community, west of Taos, consists of all Earthships and is where Michael Reynold's Earthship headquarters is located. Earthships are sustainable homes built from waste. They are also very expensive to buy (though relatively cheap to build from scratch.) We did not buy an Earthship.

But even here in Taos, many of my friends would never consider living off-grid. they think it's too much work, and it is. But the work is part of the practice. Everyday having to think about where your electric, water, heat and cooking fuel are coming from is a practice in reconnecting to what is important, the way our lives impact the planet. And in doing so, we are reconnecting to ourselves, confronting our own discomfort and finding a new kind of comfort that is more precious and truer than all the shopping trips, pizza bingeing and television viewing put together.

For the last six years, we have been renting a 1300 sq. ft. home in Taos for about $1200 a month, add another $300 for utilities. This is excellent rent for Taos where housing is outrageously expensive. Due to second home buyers from Texas who drive up the cost of homes and unregulated Airbnbs, which drive up the cost of rentals, it is very challenging to find affordable housing in our economically depressed town. But despite our fortunate circumstances, we still wanted to live the dream of owning our own home debt free.

We tried our best to save but we never seemed to be able to save enough to buy even a plot of land. Granted, most of our money goes to travel and we weren't really willing to give up travel, but also it goes to living a consumer lifestyle. Despite my minimalist ways, I have been like a fish in a fish bowl. I consumed to fill my space. I lived lushly and comfortably and if I wanted something, I usually purchased it. I buy second hand and I'm thrifty, but as I cleaned out my house, preparing for the move, I could see the recent purchases in the last six years that I really did not need (artwork, pillows, dishes, appliances, etc.). They were nice to have, but I could definitely live without them.

When you have electricity restrictions due to being on solar energy and batteries, you really have to reconsider your appliances. In doing so, you see they just aren't that necessary. (I don't want to give up my Vitamix or Instant Pot though!) When you have limited space, you see that you didn't need that extra furniture or that spin bike or that chair. We don't need all the extra closet space to hold items that we only use once a year or haven't used in years. We don't even need the extra bathroom. We can figure out how to share (the outhouse will help though.) Yes, there is a certain amount of comfort that will be sacrificed, but I'm more looking forward to what we will gain.

Less screen time for my tween and me. More time together as a family. Less to clean (Did I mention I hate to clean?)Saving money to go on more adventures. Feeling good about our small footprint on the planet. More time at home. More freedom. More creativity. A beautiful sacred space that is all our own.

So, you're probably wondering how we ended up with a debt-free home. To be continued in Part 2 of How We Got a Mortgage Free Home.