Mortgage Free Diaries Fiona Ferris

Photo by Lucija Ros on Unsplash

Grab a seat, your drink of choice and join us for our first ever Mortgage Free Diaries series where I will be interviewing guests who have hustled to pay off their mortgage early.

I am so excited to introduce our fabulous and chic Mortgage Diarist, Fiona Ferris. I can not think of anyone better to kickstart this series since she was a big inspiration to me during my own journey to becoming mortgage free via her book Financially Chic.

Fiona is an author who writes about living a simple, beautiful and successful life without spending a lot of money. She adores self-development and is all about cultivating her own growth in a fun and feminine way and lives in the beautiful Hawkes Bay with her husband and fur babies.

Just a note that the below is a summary of our chat. Watch or listen to the full interview to make sure you don’t miss out on our full conversation!

Location: Hawkes Bay, NZ (First home paid off in Auckland)

Occupation: Author

Mortgage Free age: Mid to late 40s

Time taken to pay off mortgage: 4.5 years (original aim was 5 years but got so excited that it was done earlier!)

Natural spender or saver: I have been both at different times in my life. I was more of a spender when I was younger and when I got my first full time job when I was 18 I wanted to buy a new mini stereo and asked the bank for a personal loan. The bank told me it was too small for a loan and said ‘lets get you a credit card’. So I ended up with a credit card that I would put stuff on and pay off (not always the full amount).

In my early 30s I was newly divorced and one day it occurred to me that the amount owing on my credit card was the same as my pay including my rent. One day I thought ‘I don’t like this’ so I am going to not use my credit card this month. I am going to pay it off and live off ‘nothing’ for a month so I could get ahead of the game.

So that was the turning point of when I became a saver and I am definitely a saver now.

Where did your inspiration of becoming mortgage free come from?

I worked for a few different financial planning companies in my 20s and I used to see clients coming in and there were the older people coming in but there were also surprisingly young people coming into the office as well.

There was one girl who owned her own home and I thought ‘she is the same age as me!’ That made me think you don’t have to be older to own a home. Also seeing behind the scenes of people’s financial lives showed me that some people had a lot more or were saving a lot more money than others. I could see normal people like me, earning a normal income that were putting money away. Around the same time I was also reading money books (from the library) and would look up CNN money that had a personal finance section with real life stories of singles and couples of how they saved a lot and some paid off their mortgage early and that gave me inspiration and I saw that as a fun goal to work towards to get ahead with money.

There was another person that came into our life who is second in charge at one of the major banks in NZ. Because he works at a bank we were talking to him about money and we were saying how we were paying off our mortgage early and he said ‘when you don’t have debt, you have options’ and that has stuck with me. I don’t have to go to work right now (I write my books) but if I didn’t write I could still not go to work at the age of 52.

Most people have to finish a job on the Friday and start a new job straight away on the Monday. However, you don’t have to live like that!

When we moved from Auckland to Hawkes Bay we had paid off our mortgage and I had just started writing my books. My husband didn’t work for 10 months during the transition. There wasn’t the pressure of having a mortgage to pay. There are people with terrible health diagnosis who still have to go to work because of a large mortgage.

What was your main motivation for becoming mortgage free?

Combination of low stress and peace of mind which is really important to me. Having choices - because I never liked going to work. It’s not that I didn’t like working, I am just such a homebody I just love being at home!

Whether we are renting or buying a home, we spend so much time and energy paying for it, and decorating it and cleaning it but we are never there. We are gone 5 days out of 7 for most of the day so it feels like you only have 1 or 2 days on the weekend to enjoy it. So I really wanted to be able to enjoy my home and not just be in an office.

What was your biggest challenge during your journey and how did you overcome this?

I don’t feel like we had a challenge as it was a really fun and invigorating time since we learned how to make our own fun on not much money. It really helped that we were on the same page because if you are going in a different direction then it’s going to be hard so I was really lucky in that respect.

What lifestyle has being mortgage free early given you?

Paul (hubby) didn’t need to get a job straight away when we moved from Auckland to Hawkes Bay because we sold our business in December but didn’t move until July and he started a new job in October.

I could write my books without the pressure of having to earn money. I thought I would have to get a part time job but then realised that I didn’t actually need to and could spend that time writing my books and doing what I enjoy at home.

Ability to look forward to retirement in the later years without stress with a paid off home and knowing that if stuff happens (because the unexpected always happens!) such as needing to pay costs for the cyclones that were not covered by insurance or vet bills for our dog who needed emergency surgery. These things all cost money and it is just so relaxing without having to stress about not being able to pay for these things.

How do you feel about getting another mortgage?

We had hoped we wouldn’t get another mortgage when we moved into our dream home, but we were open to getting another mortgage as long as it wasn’t going to be too large. We got another smaller mortgage when we moved from Auckland to Hawkes Bay, however once you have been mortgage free, you are very intolerant of getting another one! So we got rid of the second one as quick as we could.

However we did balance this with splurging such as doing some interior decorating and buying furniture. We did this in a savvy way - we went to auctions and got stuff we liked at a really good price compared to buying new at a furniture store. It also has the added bonus of being green.

What kind of conversations did you have about money growing up? Do you remember being taught about money by your parents?

We didn’t really talk about money so it was mostly from what I saw. My parents were really traditional, my Dad was an engineer and mum stayed at home and looked after us (4 children). I didn’t really get any money messages apart from maybe that the Dad earns it and the mum has to make it work. My Dad was a good man but he also spent the money when he wanted to without consulting my mum so maybe I took away the message that whoever earns the money has the ‘power’ and that might mean to me that I want to have my own money and don’t want to beholden to another person or a bank or credit card companies.

Do you have joint or separate finances? How important do you think this is?

We have joint finances - I think this is really important as long as you trust the other person. I think it is important to have joint finances. There are no secrets and you can’t hide anything from your partner. You are working towards the same goals together rather than being in competition with each other. My husband and I have a natural thing where if it is a large amount we are going to talk to each other about it and smaller amounts we will spend.

Do you have a structured money date / money routine with your husband?

We don’t have a formal structure of when we talk about money but we love talking about money together. Not just money but goals (I’m into self development so I love to write my goals down and do all that ‘geeky stuff’) but he is not like that at all.

Did you/do you feel comfortable discussing your mortgage free journey/becoming mortgage free with friends and family?

Did you receive any unexpected responses?

If we end up talking about money we might end up talking about things. But because you don’t know where people are at (or sometimes you do), you don’t want to make them feel bad if they are not on the same page.

I would like to talk about money more but we don’t really talk about it, its hard (to discuss) with my friends or family. I have a few family members that I talk about money with and I love that we can be open, but I think it’s harder with people that might approach things differently.

I would love it if someone came to me and said - you guys have done really well, can you show us (how you did that). I would love to be a budget advisor to help people get ahead - it’s so fun and exciting for me, but no one has asked me yet!

What was a non-negotiable cost that you did not give up during your mortgage free journey?

One was entertainment - so we did entertainment in our own financially savvy way. We didn’t have streaming back then so we would get DVDs, magazines and books out of the library and pair it with inexpensive wine on the weekend and make our own fun. We didn’t eat out too much because it was more expensive but would celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

We also did Staycations often when we had our store in Auckland and were actively paying off our mortgage really quickly. We had a 7 day a week business that we ran between the two of us. We didn’t have many days off together apart from Christmas and Easter so we had to figure out a way where we could have mini breaks and have daily fun as well. We would go to the Cordis Hotel on a Saturday night and they would have the club lounge with free drinks, food and breakfast included in the price of the stay. We didn’t have any travel expenses since it was in the same city we lived in and didn’t need to take time off work.

These two things were our non-negotiables to make it fun and still get ahead on our goals.

Do you feel different about money since becoming mortgage free?

It definitely feels more relaxing, more free. It does feel nice to own the house (the bank doesn’t own it). I think about retirement a lot, I just think not having to pay mortgage, not having to pay rent is a lot less (money) when you don’t have to pay for these. It’s also a big thing for me to feel secure about the future.

Did you invest outside of Kiwisaver/Superannuation whilst paying down your mortgage? Why?

We do have Kiwisaver, we have index funds that we drip feed each month which we started up after we paid off the mortgage. I personally would put everything in the mortgage and focus on that one goal. Maybe if I was doing a 20 year mortgage I would have started investing but since we had a short 5 year plan (of paying off the mortgage early) it made more sense to us to throw everything into the mortgage and fill that bucket up first, then do investing.

What is the best money advice someone has ever given to you?

When you don’t have debt you have options.

Dave Ramsey’s “Live like no one else today so you can live like no one else tomorrow”. Make those sacrifices today so you can live like no one else tomorrow. Most people do what everyone else does, and I have always been a bit of a rebel.

What are your top 3 tips for becoming mortgage free?

1/ Dream of your ideal lifestyle and create a vision for yourself. What would it look like if I didn’t have a mortgage. For me it was not having to leave the house if I didn’t want to. On a Tuesday morning it’s pouring down with rain - knowing that I don’t have to get on the bus to go to work. This is what I used to dream about and I am so lucky that it is now a reality.

2/ Get your partner on board. Even though Paul and I are similar in the early days we had to learn to dream together. We were walking together in Hawaii for our honeymoon and was saying imagine if this was our life - we could spend everyday together, be in the sun, go on holiday. So just little things you can put into your partner’s mind if maybe you are not on the same page and you don’t want to nag them not to spend much. You could just say imagine if we could have our mortgage paid off early or wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a big holiday every year that was fully paid for without going into debt for it and just have those dreams that you could pop in here or there. A more easy going and fun way to talk about money rather than saying we need to do better or saying that we are behind.

3/ To make it a fun game whilst you are working towards your goals / paying off your mortgage. Brainstorm ways of how you can make it more fun and easier.

Here are my personal favorite take aways from my chat with Fiona on becoming mortgage free:

1/ Don’t buy an expensive house in the first place. Another thing that helped us pay off our mortgage early was that we didn’t buy a really expensive house. It was in a safe and family friendly neighborhood but it wasn’t flash and our house wasn’t flash either. It was a really simple home in a back section up a long driveway so that made a big difference as well.

2/ Treat your home like a rental Our first home we treated like it was a rental and we didn’t do any upgrades at all apart from splurging on a fire place. For example we kept the same carpet even though it was old (it was clean but 25-30 year old carpet) and we didn’t paint. We just did items that needed actual maintenance because we knew it wasn’t our dream home. So we made it as warm and as comfortable and cozy and stylish as we could without spending more.

I wanted to end this post by saying a big thank you to Fiona for giving her time to give us such an inspiring and wonderful insight into her mortgage free journey.

I am a big believer in mindset being a keystone for reaching your goals and part of that is cultivating a positive environment including what you read and consume in terms of media. I personally have over 10 of Fiona’s books and find them SOOO inspiring and motivating and re-read them on the regular so would highly recommend getting a copy (or more!) of her books. Warning - you are not going to stop at one! She has financial wisdom sprinkled throughout her various titles but ‘Financially Chic’ and ‘100 ways to Live a Luxurious Life on a Budget’ are focused on finances if you are looking to focus on money and budgeting inspiration. Make sure to check out her books by clicking on the link here.

You can also find more on Fiona on:

Instagram: Fionaferrisnz

Website: Howtobechic.com

Friendly reminder: The above reflects personal choices and opinions. As always all my posts and content are for entertainment, inspiration and education purposes only and is never financial advice.