We paid off the mortgage yesterday! I don't mean to gloat (especially when the cost of living and interest rates are making things so tough for many at the moment) - we're not telling anyone in real life though, so I just wanted to let some of my excitement out, even if anonymously.
I'm 38, and the only family help was a $5000 loan from the in-laws which we paid back within a year. We bought really young (didn't feel like it at the time, but it was - early/mid 20s), so benefited from much lower prices and interest rates (though the first rate we had was 7.5%, that's also the highest one we had). That first place got earthquaked though and we had to start again from scratch, so it wasn't all smooth sailing.
The house is old and tired, and there's a lot of deferred maintenance (no curtains match anywhere, the carpet is shit, and we still have single glazing), so that'll take up the savings for a good long while. But man, it feels like a weight has been lifted.
When we moved to our current place I learnt so much about styles of curtains and blinds. We've got rolling blinds and pull string blinds and curtains big and small. I remember saying it felt like a curtain shop with all the different curtains.
I've never really been too bothered about the curtains as long as they were functional, but now I think I might have to look into it a bit more. It's nice to have the choice. We'll probably stick with curtains (blackout ones of some kind probably) - I remember blinds looking nice, but being a pain in the ass to clean once they got dusty.
The blinds with strings are so annoying to use. When we needed to replace curtains in one room we ended up replacing with a blind with a chain to roll it up/down, and it's so noisy!
Not gloating but definitely worth shouting into the local void, congrats! We're a long ways off being able to say that but I'm genuinely happy for anyone managing to get there.