Article content continued

Extra mortgage payments: as much as $3,000 a month

[/np_storybar]

The 29-year-old pension analyst is $130,000 away from paying off his $425,000 home in Toronto, without money from parents or the lotto.

Becoming mortgage-free in your 30s, even in the absence of a windfall, is possible; but what does it take? The average Canadian homeowner doesn’t expect to be mortgage-free until the age of 58, a new CIBC survey suggests.

Mr. Cooper has been on a single-minded path to debt freedom since he bought a three-bedroom bungalow on a quiet Scarborough street almost five years ago.

He lives in the basement while a family thumps around upstairs, which they rent for $1,550 a month.

In his kitchen, several puffed out ziplock bags rest upside down along the back of his sink like a string of lanterns. He washes and reuses them. “Doesn’t everyone do that?” he says earnestly.

As we tour his living quarters — a museum of pre-owned and gifted furniture and items, his mother’s brown couch, her castoff floral pictures over his fireplace, a white dining set with puffy, lime chairs with black wheels on the legs — he points out things that he’ll replace once his mortgage is paid off. He still needs to have a house-warming party — a potluck, he says. But again — once the mortgage is paid off.

He earns $50,000 a year before tax at a global pension and benefits consulting firm. He gets up at 5 a.m. sometimes and writes freelance financial articles for extra cash. On the weekends, he still works at a grocery store where he’s worked for 10 years.