Breaking the Chains of a Mortgage

A clever idea for crushing your mortgage debt.

Some of us have mortgages, not all, but some of us. I heard of a clever way to get mentally and visually involved in paying that sucker off.

Mortgages Suck

And mortgages are a sucker are they not? As in, the interest payments suck money out of our pockets. And that is not a super bad thing when you consider that the banks were nice enough to lend us the money in the first place. Of course, the banks expect to be paid for lending us the money, so I have no gripe against the banks here.

But don’t we all want to pay off our mortgage? So here is an idea I ran into. Sorry, I can not find the reference of where the idea came from. I looked but just couldn't find it.

Make or Find a Chain

Here is the idea. Make a chain. Or find a chain of some sort. It would not have to be a metal one (as I have shown in the picture above). If I might suggest making a chain out of colored construction paper. You could use a metal chain of course if you have a bolt cutter around the house or a blow torch. Now that I think of it, use a metal chain if you can. It will be a lot more fun! 😄

Side Note: if you are going to cut the chain links with a blow torch make sure you have your fire insurance up to date. 🔥

Figure Out, or Find Out, the Total Amount Outstanding

Find out the balance on your mortgage and make one chain link for each $1000 of the loan remaining. So, if you have a $200,000 balance remaining on your mortgage, you will need to make a chain consisting of 200 links of paper. I was just thinking of how painful a 5000 link chain would be for a $5,000,000 mortgage on your mansion. Ugg. 😟

Guess why I don’t own a mansion.

Make the Chain Visible, In Your Face Visible

Now place this link of chain somewhere where you can see it every day. Maybe in the bedroom or perhaps even in the living room. That way you have a daily reminder of how much money you need to pay off.

Now, check the outstanding balance on your mortgage perhaps once every couple of months, and see how you are doing. If you have the balance available to you online, that would be even easier.

Let Time Pass, Seeing the Chain Should Motivate You

As time passes, my hope would be that you would start to make extra payments on your mortgage. Many banks limit the number or the amounts of extra payment you can make, so check that out first. But as you make the payments you can “clip” off the links of the chain. I can see how that might get exciting after a few years of diligent extra payments. And a fantastic side benefit of paying down your mortgage early is that you will pay far less interest over the length of the loan, but you probably already knew that.

Car Payment, Anyone?

Of course, you could use this system to pay off any debt. You just might have to modify the amount of money each link in your chain is worth. For example, if you have a car loan with an outstanding balance of $5000, you may want to make each link of the chain worth $50 so you will be able to see progress quickly as you pay off the loan.

Just another idea to help you crush your debt. I seem to be on a “debt crushing” binge right now.

Possible Modifications?

If you like this idea let me know. You can also modify it to suit your needs. For example, instead of a chain of paper links perhaps you might use paper clips? Or maybe have a huge jar of M&M’s or something and each time you knock off a specific amount of money from your loan or your mortgage, you get to eat an M&M? (Food always motivates me, so that would be my favorite method for sure.) Perhaps some other sort of candy would work for you? 🍬

Just thinking out loud here, but what about for every $5000 paid off you get dinner out? Does that get your mortgage smashing genes going?

Maybe for every $5000 paid off a new pair of shoes? 👠

But let me know what you think. Maybe you have another “fun” way to pay off debt. Please drop me a line and let me know.

As always, I hope the best for you. Good luck in your debt-killing adventure… Max