Burn your Mortgage - Sean Cooper - Part 1

Burn Your Mortgage - Sean Cooper

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 147

  May 27, 2017 

Book 44 - Burn Your Mortgage -
The Simple, Powerful Path to Financial Freedom for Canadians
Sean Cooper (2017)
 Part 1 - pages 1-216
Reading Time - 4 hours

I bought this book as an e-book and read it pretty quickly. Sean Cooper was in the news last year after paying off his mortgage in 3 years. He had bought a bungalow with a basement suite in the Greater Toronto area (I think). He lived in the basement and rented out the upstairs (more rent). He worked several side gigs in addition to his regular job. He also biked to work and used transit during the winter months. Basically, he saved every penny that he could and threw it at his mortgage.

This book is a summary of his advice on how to burn your mortgage. I know some people might think that in this age of ultra low interest rates, it makes no sense to pay off your mortgage faster but... we are on the same path as Sean. Our mortgage rate is 2.99% interest... which is nothing but... interest rates will go up at some point... And a piddly 1% rise in interest rates for us would mean a 12% jump in our mortgage payment. That's a big jump!! Our goal (in line with Sean's) is to pay off our mortgage ASAP. We're not big believers that a mortgage is "good debt". Any debt is bad...

Now... as to the book. A lot of the stuff in the book is very familiar to me, having read Gail Vaz Oxlade's books over the last few years. There are many different tips on how to save money... brown bag a lunch, take transit, buy a used car instead of a new car, etc. For someone who isn't conversant with the material from other sources, it's probably a very useful read. I'm glad I bought the book (always want to support people like Sean) but not sure I'll be reading it again.