The story of how Frogdancer Jones won her freedom.

In 1996, my then- husband and I bought an ugly little 1950s weatherboard in a quiet suburb near the bay. We had 4 sons: a nearly 5-year-old about to start school the next year; a 3 and a 2-year-old and the baby of 3 weeks.

This house had one lounge, one bathroom, one toilet but 4 bedrooms. We figured that as time went on we could extend. We had a deposit of 40K. The mortgage was 96K.

A year later we divorced and I had to buy him out. The court set the figure at 18K so I went to the Commonwealth Bank to refinance. The bank knocked me back, saying that they’d refinance me LESS than my current mortgage, (which I was making the payments on every month like clockwork.) I couldn’t believe it. I’d lose the house. Where would the boys and I go? I went home and cried for three days.

Then I got angry.

I rang Dad and asked him to come over and look after the kids. Then I dressed in what little ‘office’ attire I had left after 7 years at home with the boys and I marched back into the offices of the bank. I was very clear about my future prospects, my unblemished banking record and the fact that although I was a single mother with 4 children, that didn’t automatically mean that I was a no-hoper loser.

The mortgage rose to 115K. I paid out my husband and the boys and I settled into our new life as a single-parent household. I decided to stay at home with them, primarily to give them the stability that a divorce had taken away from them, but also because the childcare fees for 4 children would eat up any wage I brought home. I cleaned houses to get a little extra cash when Mum could look after the boys, but basically, we lived on the smell of an oily rag.

The next few years were very hand to mouth. There were child-support dramas that saw some very tough times, but I knew that as long as I could make it through until Evan began school, then I could make the whole thing work.

When Evan started prep, I began teaching again, first as a CRT/Emergency teacher and then I got a 9-month full-time teaching contract at my local high school, the same year that my oldest, Tom, started there in year 7. This school was the reason I’d chosen the area way back when we bought, as it had an excellent reputation as one of the top 4 non-selective government schools in Melbourne. Nothing but the best for my boys!

I had security for 9 months with this contract. Our car was falling to bits so I bought a three-year-old Ford Station Wagon, which made the mortgage rise by another 15k. I vowed to have the mortgage down below pre-car levels by the time the contract ran out. I did.

I kept getting contract after contract at the school. Meanwhile, I cleverly fixed the mortgage rate for 5 years, only then to see interest rates plummet. D’OH! Not what the plan was supposed to be! Still, I consoled myself with the fact that at least I knew how much my payments were, and if it wasn’t for the Commonwealth, I wouldn’t even HAVE a mortgage. I kept on.

When the school offered me a permanent position, I knew that now we were safe. I took the boys on a holiday to Bali, ( then Thailand the next year because we had so much fun), and I started renovating. My plan at first was to pay off the house and then save for a new bathroom and kitchen- but then I thought it’d be better to get it done while they were all still living with me and we could all get the benefit.

Ironically, this time when I went back to the bank to talk refinancing, they offered to lend me 260K. I laughed, remembering how just a few short years before I was deemed to be a Bad Risk. I didn’t want to spend that much money, because I still had my over-arching dream to be debt-free.

So the mortgage rose to $199,995.
There was no way I was going over the 200K level!!

I got rid of the ugly asbestos cladding that looked like bricks made of chocolate icing. We had ducted heating and evaporative cooling put in, along with a new kitchen, bathroom and a continuous gas hot water service so we could have our showers the exact temperatures that we liked – and we weren’t constantly heating up a tank of hot water and paying for it. And a fence:

Since then, I chipped away at the mortgage, enjoying each time it fell another 10K’s worth. At first, it was slow, but then momentum started to build up. It became like a game, seeing what else I could shave off our expenses to get the total down more and more, month after month. I chose not to do a lot of things on my way towards freedom, but one choice that I decided to do made a huge difference.

In 2012 I went to a Thermomix demonstration held by a blogging friend from my personal blog and I bought one. I loved the machine and it started me thinking…

Three weeks later I became a consultant. Nowadays we’d call this a ‘side hustle’ but this was way before anyone was coining that phrase. I knew that I needed to make more money and my Etsy shop selling knitted hats just wasn’t cutting it.

From memory, my mortgage was hovering around the 100- 90K Mark.

In 2012 I worked full-time as a teacher and did thermomix on the side. I earned a free trip to Hong Kong for a week, which I was rapt about. Being able to travel was one of the sacrifices I’d chosen to make to get rid of the mortgage.

In 2013 I swapped my mortgage to UBank. At the time it was 77K. The lower interest rate made a HUGE difference. The principal started melting away before my eyes. I redoubled my efforts and started hurling every dollar I could at it.
My house had a leaky spot in the guttering. It needed painting. My curtains were so dated it was embarrassing. It needed awnings out the front. But I kept patting her, saying, “Don’t worry, hold it together. Let me pay you off, save for Europe in 2015 and then I’ll look after you.”

In 2013 I invested more time in Thermomix, going part-time with teaching by dropping a day and 17K in wages to take on a Group Leader position where I was managing a team of consultants. I was scared to drop my wage, but if I wanted the job in Thermomix I had to attend fortnightly meetings on Friday mornings. I gave it a go, thinking that if I was able to double what I was losing, then I’d be happy.

I did that. I also earned another free trip, this time to Sun City in South Africa. Who would have ever dreamed that an ordinary single mother of 4 would be able to see African wildlife IN AFRICA, let alone walk through the bush behind real adult lions and cuddle lion cubs? Life was beginning to brim over with possibilities…

December 19th 2013, I was lying in bed first thing in the morning. It was the last day of the school year. I pulled up my UBank statement on my iPad and couldn’t help but notice that my savings were $10 more than my mortgage.

The mortgage was $12, 330.

It was more than flesh and blood could stand. I paid it all across. I had no emergency fund, no holiday savings, no nothing.
But I had my freedom. It only took 17 years.