But we were smart with our money choosing to live near public transportation, walking and using the metro whenever possible, saving $ 350 per month in parking costs at my husband’s workplace, not to mention gasoline, and forgoing a second car altogether .
The more expensive high season resort vacations were not an option for us. To travel on a budget, we limit ourselves to road trips in the summer and opt for a getaway during the shoulder season whenever airfare is involved. For example, we would visit my husband’s family in Ireland in April instead of August, and usually we would also go on winter holidays in February or April to miss the high prices of the March or Christmas holidays.
The reward ? For the past 14 years, we’ve covered the mortgage payments on our modest Toronto home with accelerated mortgage payments every two weeks, lowering the lump sum. advance payments once or twice a year to reduce capital more quickly. And so we managed to pay off our mortgage in December 2019.
And yet we have come to a strange moment. Immediately after feeling proud and relieved to pay off the largest debt that most people have ever incurred, we wondered how best to use our new mortgage-size disposable income, with retirement still 20 years away. .
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
With both of us worried about our job security (we work in the increasingly precarious publishing industry – my husband as a salaried journalist and I as a freelance writer), “before” financial advice do not seem applicable. We are concerned about wage contractions, layoffs and, of course, a recession.
We always wanted an income property that could also be a vacation home, preferably somewhere with a sunny and warm climate to escape the Canadian winter. Given the current economic outlook, however, we are afraid of making another major purchase using the money we would have spent on our mortgage. So what should do we do now?
Redirect your money towards retirement savings
Paying off a mortgage with 20 years before retirement is not that common, says Akilah Allen-Silverstein, CFP, RRC, financial advisor at Mandeville Private Client Inc. “But as a financial planner, I am very enthusiastic about clients when it is their reality. ; this provides additional liquidity to fund retirement savings. (My husband and I pat each other on the back retroactively.)
