Ask Sherry: On vaccinations and taking on a mortgage or avoiding one completely

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My husband and I are in our early 40s with a tween and a teen. I do not work outside the home. My husband was recently promoted and we will be moving about 4 hours away for the job.

The area we are moving to is less expensive than where we currently are and we have enough equity in our home to buy a house in the new area and be mortgage free. We will likely have to downsize to make this happen. What are your thoughts on making sacrifices to be mortgage free? Should we make a plan to buy a house we like more but could pay off in 5-10 years? We have about $75k in savings right now too. No car payments, loans, credit card debt, or the like. Kids college is taken care of and retirement is in good shape.

Well, mortgage rates are historically, the lowest they’ve ever been and likely ever will be. They’ve just been hammered in recent years, so that’s a good thing.

If you can pay it off in 5-10 years AND it can afford you your ‘dream’ home that you like more, so that you’re comfortable and don’t need to move again or to a nicer neighbourhood, etc, I don’t see what could possibly stop you.

There are some who want to be 100% mortgage free by choice, or like me, because banks don’t really like freelancers and want to see ‘steady’ income to be able to lend money out, so mortgage-free would be our choice, but not necessarily the best one (again: see rates).

I’d do the math to see how much extra you’d pay versus being mortgage free, and if that interest you’re paying over the 5-10 year loan would be worth it as an ‘extra’ to secure your dream home, or not, and you’ve obviously taken into account as well that you’re likely to do renovations, maybe add or fix things (like a shed, new driveway whatever), so that as to be tacked on as well I suppose, on a mortgage-free home versus a mortgaged one.

This is the kind of calculation I’d do, and then depending on the final price, if it’s a question of buying something you’ll really enjoy, you guys sound like you’re in perfect financial shape, I say go for it. Why not? 🙂

If offered today, would you take the Covid-19 vaccine (Pfizer, which is currently approved in Canada)?

Yes. I would.

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You can ask any question using the form here and all of my previous Ask Sherry posts are here.