Last updated: 1/2012

,894.23 by not paying interest, and never worry about losing your home to foreclosure. It's not an impossible dream!
I'm here to tell you it can be done. I did it, only five years after being flat broke.
I'm not rich, and I never have been. You can see from the photo that my house is not fancy, it's not big, and it isn't likely to impress anybody.
But it's mine.
Living without a mortgage isn't completely free of financial worries - I still have to pay property taxes, and there's still an electric bill and a gas bill and a phone bill... But the biggest cost in most family budgets has been eliminated from mine.
I don't pay rent, and I'm not writing monthly checks to the bank.
I live in a safe, family-oriented neighborhood, and I can easily walk to the library, the post office and the bank.
If I want to see a first-run movie, I can walk to the theater, too, without worrying about my safety when I walk home in the dark.
While I'm writing this letter, I'm looking out my home office window and watching a pair of purple finches snacking on the sunflower seeds in the birdfeeder.
When I need a break from the computer I'll take my coffee out to my back deck and watch the goldfish in the pond, or perhaps I'll watch the robin take his bath in the big concrete leaf fountain my father made for me.
Maybe I'll pull a few weeds in my large organic garden, or say a few words to my friendly neighbor, and throw a ball for the mutt I rescued from the pound a few weeks after moving to my new house. If I have extra time, I'll take the dog to the beautiful city park down by the river.
My current home is sitting in one of the most beautiful valleys in the country, in a small city that was listed by The Mother Earth News as one of the "10 Best Places You Never Heard Of." I've been living here for almost a year now, and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
But, I have to admit that people thought it was pretty funny when I first told them I was going to buy a house. They didn't believe it was possible.
I couldn't really blame them - I was living in a cheap studio apartment when I first got the idea of owning my own house, and my bank account was as close to zero as it could get without bouncing checks. I'm a baby-boomer nearing retirement, but I really wasn't even close to ready. In fact, I was pretty close to flat broke.
The only positive note in my financial situation was the steady job I landed as a customer service rep, at a company within walking distance of my apartment.
The apartment I rented was tiny, with two flights of stairs and a grungy public hallway to get to my front door. Visitors had to sit on my bed when they drank their coffee (which might have been fine when I was just out of college, but I was a 52-year old woman, recovering from a financial disaster caused by my recent divorce).
I couldn't move to a bigger place, because I couldn't afford anything better - but I knew I would soon own my own home, without a mortgage.
Who could blame them for thinking I was crazy?
The city I lived in was one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, and home prices were climbing through the roof. At the time, the average mortgage payment was $ 1,167.15 a month!
How could a single person like me, with a $12.00/hr job, find a house I could actually afford even if I could save enough for my down payment?
Then people started hearing the really crazy part - my plan went beyond just getting a loan on an affordable house. That was just the start.
I intended to go from renting, to having a mortgage, and then to owning my own home - paid for with cash - in just five years.
I wasn't just dreaming - I was inspired by other people I knew who had done exactly what I intended to do. I believed it was possible, and I proved it - I achieved my goal of owning my own home, mortgage-free, in just five years.
Saving for my first down payment took me three years.
I did whatever it took to live frugally and save money. My wages went up a bit over time, and I put the extra cash in the bank. In three years I had enough for a small down payment on an inexpensive house, if I could find one. And I discovered a state-sponsored loan program that would allow me to get a mortgage with lower interest than the going rate.
Then I used my Internet searching skills to find a house in the city that I could actually afford.
And no - it wasn't a fixer, and it wasn't in a "bad" part of town. My solid, well-maintained home actually cost me less than the bank was willing to loan me, based on my income. That's right - I found a home that cost less than I could officially afford.
After I closed on my first house, friends thought I should be content because I had a low-interest mortgage, and the monthly payments on my inexpensive home were about half what most people I knew were paying for their home loans.
They reminded me that I could pay off the mortgage early by simply increasing my monthly payments. That would be the reasonable thing to do, they said - why hang on to the insane idea of paying cash for another house, in just a few years?
They were right about the math. According to a calculator I found online, if you owe $100,000 on a mortgage with 6% interest, and if you paid $260 a month extra towards the principal when you send in your mortgage payment, you would save a whopping $65,634.70 in interest and pay off your mortgage 15 years early.
Why didn't I choose to go that route?
Because I knew I couldn't afford any mortgage payments on the small retirement income I expected to receive, and by then I was 55 years old. I would hit the official retirement age in less than 15 years.
And I also wanted to "retire" early; or, more accurately, I wanted to try making my living as a full-time writer instead of working from 8am to 4pm every day in a downtown corporate office building. I wanted to work for myself, in my own home, doing something I loved doing.
If I could remove the monthly rent or mortgage payment from my budget, I could afford to take the risk and leave the corporate world behind.
Besides, even if you do save a ton of money by paying off a mortgage in 15 years instead of 30, you still end up paying $51,894.23 in interest for that $100,000 loan. I could think of other things to do with that kind of cash.
So two years later, I bought my current home - with cash!
It's hard even for me to believe that only 6 years ago I lived with two cats in that tiny walk-up apartment.
Was it easy to get where I am in such a short amount of time?
Not exactly.
I had to change my attitude a bit, and I had to give up buying a few things that I didn't really need. I had to find ways to make a little more money to add to the wages from my job. And I had to be willing to turn down some invitations to socialize because I was working towards a more important goal.
Changing my attitude was probably the hardest part. I'll confess that I've owned homes before (with mortgages, of course), but I always bought them for the wrong reasons, or sold them for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. By the time of my divorce I had nothing left.
Clearly, I needed to do things differently this time if I was really going to end up with a mortgage-free house.
I had to look at the process like a business, and follow through on my plan even though most of the people I know thought it was impossible.
I knew it wasn't impossible. In fact, I knew that I was following in the footsteps of thousands of other people who had done exactly what I wanted to do.
There were times when I felt a bit "different," because most of the people I knew at the time were following a different path - a path that would keep them in debt - and that's fine if that's what you want. Many people don't even want to own a house without a mortgage if it requires them to make even minor changes to their overextended lifestyle.
But if you look hard enough, you'll find many people who have a different attitude - and that attitude helps them achieve their dream of buying a home with cash.
I'm not all that unique - I now know many people who own their own mortgage-free homes.
Some people might be willing to sell their soul to the bank in order to live in the biggest, fanciest house they can find, but there is a growing number of people who don't see that as a sane way of living.
They want the financial security of owning a house they can live in without worrying about a possible foreclosure if times get tough.
And they would like to leave a real asset to their children someday, instead of a mountain of debt.
In fact, many people are doing whatever it takes, right now, to become completely debt-free - and the biggest debt for most families is their mortgage
Others are still working at it, but they will get there, someday soon.
But most people who "dream" of living a debt-free life haven't even made it to Step One yet, and probably never will - either because they don't really believe it's possible, or because they don't want it bad enough.
For people who do want it bad enough, I've written a 48-page report that shows you the exact steps I took to achieve my goal of owning my own home, mortgage-free, in just five years.
I show you how I saved up enough for a down payment while earning less than the nation's "average" wage.
I show you how I found a solid, affordable house in an area where home prices were climbing through the roof.
I show you how I then made a few minor changes to the house to bring it up to its full value, so I could cash in on the hot real estate market - without doing any extensive remodeling, and while still putting more money in the bank for my next house.
I show you what I did to make sure my house would sell quickly for the right price when it was time to sell.
And I show you how I found my next house, that was twice as big but cost half as much. With the money from the sale of my first home, and the extra money I put in the bank, I was able to make an all-cash offer on my current home, and I'll show you exactly how I did it.
I wrote this report to encourage and inspire you, and to give you ideas that you can use to create a perfect plan for yourself.
I'm not promising that the ideas in my report will help you go from having $5 in the bank to owning a million-dollar mansion in 5 easy steps. That really would be crazy.
I can't even promise that you will be able to buy a modest home like mine, but I do believe that just about anyone can own their own home, mortgage-free, if they have realistic expectations and if they're willing to do a bit of work to reach their goals.
If you're dedicated to the idea of buying a house with cash, I think you'll find ideas in my report that will help you create a customized plan that fits the current real estate market in your area and your family's current financial situation and goals.
When you create your own plan, you might decide to take things slower and accumulate more cash so you can buy a bigger house than I did. (A friend of mine did just that, and I'll show you how she did it).
Perhaps you have more money in the bank than I did (since my bank account was just about empty when I started), or you have a partner who can help you achieve your goals sooner than I did. If so, you may be able to own your own mortgage-free house in less than five years
You may even be able to go straight to step 5 and buy a house for cash this year, skipping steps one, two, three and four, like the 40-something couple who recently sold me a used couch. (I'll tell you how they did it, too.)
Or you may need to do some work to improve your credit rating, so it may take you 7 years, or even longer, to buy your own home.
No matter what your current financial situation may be, I'm convinced that anyone can eventually own their own home, mortgage-free, if they want it bad enough.
But to be completely honest, I fully expect that very few people who read my report will ever take any action that will lead them to owning their own home. That's just human nature - following the crowd is the comfortable thing to do, and in the United States the crowd is happy to stay indebted to the bank for 30 years or more, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest that could have gone towards their retirement.
Perhaps one out of a hundred will decide to leave the crowd behind, and follow their own custom-made plan to a mortgage-free life.
If you would like to know exactly how I went from flat broke to buying my own home with cash in just five years, just click on the button below for instant access to my report.
I'm only charging $14.95 for my report - I made it inexpensive so you can start saving now for your mortgage-free house.
So click the button now! Read "How I Went From Being Flat Broke to Owning My Own Home, Mortgage Free, in Just 5 Years" today.
Get inspired, get excited - and then start working towards owning your own mortgage-free home!

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I wish you all the best,

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