We bought our place in 2003, when we were 40 and 43. It's 1500 square feet for the two of us, and was $234,000. It was probably less than half of what we could have afforded. I put down $90,000 the sale of my previous house, we paid extra on the mortgage every month, and had the place paid off by August 2006. We were making around $80,000 and $60,000 that year.
So we're going on 10 years mortgage-free. Can't say it's been much different, neither of us have expensive needs so our spending stayed about the same, while savings went way up of course. We did decide to buy a small vacation place, cash, partly to enjoy and partly as an investment since real estate prices were still down. Being able to do that was kinda cool. Some people asked, "So now you have TWO mortgages??", and we'd just say causally, "Naw, everything's paid for." Silence, people couldn't fathom that.
