How one couple is paying off their 30-year mortgage in half the time

Does the idea of having a mortgage hanging over your head for 30 years stress you out? It's understandable - buying a home is a huge commitment of time, money, and energy. But what if you could pay off your mortgage in half that time?

Tom Cox and his wife, Vickie, are close to doing just that. Both now 46, the couple decided they would buy a home in 2000 but with the caveat of "going all in," as they say.

"We decided if we were going to get a mortgage, we were also going to try to pay it off as soon as possible - whatever it took," Cox says.

From that moment, the couple, who lives in Seattle, sat down to make a plan. "And we did this before we even tried applying for a loan or knew how much we were going to be approved for," Cox explains.

Finding Their Home

The first priority in their plan to buy a home was to not buy more house than they needed, Cox says.

"We had a four-year-old child at the time and knew we probably wouldn't have any more, so there was no need for a huge place. We wanted to be comfortable without overdoing it," he explains.

They did, however, have some minimum requirements, Cox says.

"We wanted a fenced yard for the dog and a garage, and we didn't want a major fixer-upper project," Cox explains. "Other than that, we were open to anything."

With that in mind, next they applied to get preapproved for a loan, opting to use a lender Cox's sister recommended.

"It was the lender she used and her experience was great, so it seemed like a good idea," he explains.

The mortgage preapproval process was quick and painless, according to Cox. As a vocational counselor at a local high school, he makes $53,000 a year, while Vickie earns a salary in the low $30,000s as a medical secretary.

He adds, "We had a decent credit score and a low debt-to-income ratio. We have student loans but very little credit card debt, and that played a big role on the quick approval."

Less than two months after making the decision to buy a house, the couple was already looking at properties.

After seeing just six properties in the city of Seattle, the couple settled on an 805-square-foot townhouse with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

"The house sits on half an acre of land, which is enough for our two dogs to wrestle around," Cox explains. There's also a one-car garage, a fireplace, stainless steel appliances, and a massive soaking tub in the master bedroom.

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Paying Down the Mortgage

The price of the home was $349,000, which was $51,000 less than their preapproved loan amount.

"We originally wanted something cheaper, but Seattle is expensive and this particular house was in move-in condition, so we were happy," says Cox.

They ended up putting down 20 percent, or $69,800, and taking out a mortgage for $260,000 at a fixed rate of 8.03 percent.

How did they come up with their down payment? "We had been saving money for a while, plus borrowed an additional $9,000 from a family member to make the 20 percent down payment," Cox says. "We paid back that person within two years."

One perk of putting 20 percent down was not having to pay mortgage insurance, but their monthly payments still came out to $2,420 per month.

"It was tight, but from the beginning we figured that if we could pay $2,420, we could pay $2,600, so we got rid of cable and added that money into the mortgage," Cox says.

And just applying that $180 per month to the mortgage payment instead of cable reduced their loan time considerably. "Instead of being done by 2030, we could own the home by 2024," he explains.

Over the next couple of years, the couple added every penny they could save to the mortgage.

"We put about $2,000 from our tax return into the mortgage every year, plus we sold one of our cars in 2001 and put almost $6,000 into the mortgage as a result," he adds. Why sell the car? Cox says they decided they could juggle nearby public transportation and one car to do everything needed to do.

He adds from then on, they were always looking for ways to add extra money to their mortgage payments. "We also occasionally sold stuff on eBay and did odd jobs, like pet-sitting for friends or helping somebody move," says Cox.

An aunt also left Cox a small inheritance of a few thousand dollars, which they divided between a trip to Disneyland and paying off their mortgage. By the time they were ready to refinance in 2005, their mortgage was down to $270,000.

Rates had dropped considerably since they originally bought the home, and the couple wanted to take advantage of it, Cox explains. So in July 2005, they refinanced to a much lower rate of 5.7 percent on a 15-year fixed rate mortgage.

[Looking to refinance to a lower rate? Click to compare rates and lenders now.]

"Our monthly payments dropped to just under $2,234, but by then we were used to paying the $2,600, so we continued doing that," Cox explains. "Plus, we kept putting our tax returns towards the principal every year as well."

The following year, Cox received a promotion at work, so the couple increased their monthly payment to $2,800. The result? The pay-off date dropped down to 2016, or almost half their original 30-year period.

"Since then, we've become even more focused on paying off the mortgage," Cox says. "We save money by eating at home, having movie nights instead of going out, and camping instead of taking expensive vacations." Every penny they save goes directly into the mortgage payment.

So what's their end goal? "We want to be done with the mortgage by August 2015, which would be exactly 15 years from the time we got the original loan," Cox says. "It's sort of become a challenge for us now - [as in]  'Let's pay our mortgage in exactly half the original time.' We are pretty sure we'll meet that goal."