At Age 50, Did Brian Pay Off His Mortgage or Does He Still Have a Mortgage?

Yeah, I’m excited to kick this off with May the foo be with you question. I love that name. This question says, “Brian, happy 50th!” So first of all, happy birthday, Brian. Again, halfway to 100, that’s awesome, but two of the way done. You know, you shared some of your past goals, Brian, like, “Oh, by the time I’m 50, 50 things are going to happen.” Right? So may the foo be with you wants to know, did you pay off the mortgage or are you still waiting for the savings rate to change? This is a very Financial mutant question. Since I have nothing to add to this question because it wasn’t asked to me, you have something. I’ll give some context.

So one of the things that Brian has always said is, “I have this desire that I want to be mortgage-free. I want to be debt-free, mortgage-free in my primary residence before, when I’m 50.” So my goal is I’m going to continue doing all the stuff that we espouse in the show. I’m going to continue building my armor of dollar bills. But by 50, I want to be completely debt-free. So as this 50th birthday has been looming, a lot of folks have been asking, “Okay, Brian, did you do it? Have you done it?” So the first question for you, Brian, is why? Like, why was 50 this magic number? I think that’s important for people out there who are in their 40s thinking about that. And then you can actually answer the question. Did you do it? Is the mortgage gone?

Well, yeah, guys, just because I know we’re picking up hundreds of thousands of people every month. Of new viewers, we see 60% of you are not subscribers. Please subscribe. We’re close to hitting 400,000 right now. But I share with people the power of money. You know, and it hits different when you’re in your early 20s versus when you’re in your late 40s to even early 50s. Wealth multiplier shows you that. Yeah, I mean, it’s one of those things. And by the way, go to, you can go play around with the wealth multiplier tool if you go to moneyguy.com/resources. You know, and there’s get wealthy behaviors, and then there’s stay wealthy behaviors. And I always tell people, while your money is the most powerful, and that’s why you hear me talk about 88 times over, just realize I don’t have a drink here with the 88 times over on there. But it is every dollar when you’re 20 years of age has the potential to become $88. When you get to be my age, every dollar has the potential to become like $3. Big difference between 88 and three. So that’s why I say, when you get to my stage, stay wealthy is okay, especially if you’ve done all the heavy lifting of making it through the Financial Order of Operations.

So somebody who’s 50 years of age has been putting their army of dollar bills to work. Now I’m at the point where how do you, as part of staying wealthy, I ought to just make sure I have no debt. And the only debt I do have is a mortgage, only personal debt. Yeah. And here’s where I am with it. You know, my house has run up in value. Blows my mind what the house is now worth here in Williamson County. Um, it’s well over seven figures. Um, I owe $770,000 on this house, okay? I’m taking notes like I’m about to answer a question. You know what my mortgage is on that house? 25%. I make over 5% on my cash. That’s so I’ve done the math on this. Every $100,000 of cash reserves I keep, or you could just assume I’m close to $200,000 left on the house ’cause it’s like 170. Um, that’s almost $5,000 a year of opportunity costs.

And you have beaten me up because you found out that I was prepaying it so I’d be paid off by my birthday, which has now passed, so I’m in my 50s. Doesn’t sound any better coming out of my mouth, and it feels. But um, I have not paid off that last $170,000 because here’s what my logic is. I think eventually interest rates are going to drop in this strange moment in time that we’re in where cash is paying me 5%. I only owe 2.5%. I’ve got this weird Arbitrage. It’s not enough money to change my life, but it does F material enough. Think of all the good meals. Think of, you can even at $5,000, that’s a vacation. I mean, there’s some memory-building opportunity there. I’m running because I have enough cash in the bank that when the Federal Reserve starts dropping interest rates, and there will be an intersection point where now I’m not making 2.5% on my cash. I was just going to stroke a check. That’s where my logic, what are your thoughts on that b because you’ve been the one that’s been punching me around for prepping this thing.

Well, you know, I’ve always said this thing. We think that being debt-free is awesome. That’s there’s nothing wrong. Being debt-free is awesome. But just as awesome is the ability to be debt-free. And here’s what I love that you just said. Hey, I’ve got at least $170,000 sitting in a high-yield SS account earning interest right now. I’m not investing it. I’m not putting it into something else. I’m not taking any risk with those dollars. They are literally sitting there, bearing interest right now. And I’ve got this mortgage at it’s only 22%. So at any point in time, if it were today, if it were tomorrow, if it were next week, you could literally write a check and satisfy the mortgage. In my mind, that’s someone who has the ability to be debt-free, and that’s as good as money for me. So I think that is 100% great, and I kind of love it. I kind of love seeing the Arbitrage opportunity out there so long as it makes sense materially. So long as you’re like, okay, there’s $5,000 difference there. Yeah, that’s a trip. That’s a… This is very different than someone going out there saying, oh, my high-yield account’s making 5%, but I’ve got a 0% loan on my Furniture, car, fill in the blank on the thing that you may be financing. And you do the Arbitrage difference. You’re like, hey, this is going to save me $40 a year. $40 a year may not be worth trying to perpetrate that arbitrage strategy. So so long as it is material. Material enough in your financial world to justify that. And you maintain the ability to satisfy the debt at any time. I think it makes complete sense. Hopefully that gave you the clarification. You see a little fit into the craziness of how our financial mutant brains work. Download our free Home Buying Checklist today!