never not mortgage-free

chrishar

Is there anyone here who has chosen not to take out a mortgage in the first place?

Not because they haven't enough deposit, but because they don't want to get into debt in any shape or form?

Is there an alternative or are we all slaves to the banks if we want our own home?

edinburgher

There are a couple of diaries about individuals choosing not to take out a mortgage to buy a home in this forum, but the examples I can think of either have somewhere free/cheap to live in the interim, or are just loaded

The problem is that, even if you did wish to save up and buy a home outright, you have to have somewhere to stay all the time. This really restricts the amount that most people can save.

Choices? Buy somewhere really cheap/rent somewhere really cheap and save up like crazy...

One thing that I would say is that it's all too easy to underestimate the cost of running a home. We used to rent a lovely one bedroom flat for about £400/mth. We now pay roughly £800/mth to pay the mortgage on a lovely two bedroom flat (I'm ignoring costs like council tax and utilities here). Sometimes I don't think that renting is nearly as bad as it is made out to be...