Double your salary

Like many people I expect, we just received our mortgage statement for the year. Without wanting to give too many details of our finances away I can still tell you that we are only a year into a 25 year repayment mortgage, and that, roughly, our payments for the year were about three and a half times the amount that actually got knocked off our outstanding balance. I'm guessing that over the full term of the mortgage we will end up paying back getting on for double the amount we have borrowed.

Whilst thinking about this situation I had a moment of clarity and realised that while I have a mortgage, everything I buy will in effect cost me double what it should. For example, if I spend £2 on a pint of beer say, it will actually cost me nearer £4, because that will be the long term price of not using the £2 to pay off a little bit of my mortgage.

There may be flaws in my thinking - if so I'd be grateful to have them pointed out.

In the meantime I will endeavour to make some early mortgage repayments.

I won't be giving up beer though.