By Sarah Allen
Real estate coordinator, homeowner, and human navigating life’s plot twists
I bought my first house at 22. Back then, the math felt simple: 25-year mortgage, some responsible adulting, and by my 50s, I’d be lighting that mortgage agreement on fire and toasting my financial freedom with a celebratory grin.
Yeah… about that.
I’m 57 now, and I’m still paying a mortgage. And while I used to feel a little disappointed about that, I don’t anymore. Because honestly? Life happened. And it didn’t care about my payment schedule.
There were job changes, one cross-country move, divorce, a few financial resets, raising kids, and yes—some choices I might make differently if I had a time machine (don’t we all?). But all of it was real. All of it mattered. And none of it fits neatly into a bank’s amortization chart.
We were told there was a formula: buy young, pay it off in 25 years, retire mortgage-free in your 50s. Simple, right? But life has a way of rerouting things—job losses, divorce, caregiving, interest rates. Most of us didn’t get the clean version.
That timeline? It was never really built for real life. My dad once said even if you pay off your mortgage early, you’ll still have debt somewhere else—house, car, kids, or renovations. His advice? Live while you’ve got the energy to enjoy it.
Honestly, I think he was onto something.
Seriously. If you’re in your 50s (or beyond) and still carrying a mortgage, that doesn’t mean you messed up. It means you’ve lived a full, complicated life—like most people do. And whether you’re still in the home you bought at 25, or you’ve started over once or twice, what matters is that your home fits your life now.
And if it doesn’t? That’s not shameful either. That’s just a sign it might be time to think about what’s next—not because you “should be further ahead,” but because you deserve a life that works for where you are right now.
Still paying your mortgage? You’re not behind. You’re just living a real, unpredictable life—like the rest of us.
If your home still fits, great. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too. Sometimes the next move isn’t about getting ahead—it’s just about getting aligned with who you are now.
