Consumer rights expert Scott Dixon became mortgage -free at the age of 44 - but still lives a frugal life to save as much money as possible.
The money-saver purchased his first home - a £60,000 one-bed split level house in the Isle of Man - in September 1999 with a £6,000 deposit.
Fast forward 14 years, and Scott was mortgage-free by September 2013.
He sold his third and final home for £218,000, with a mortgage at less than £89,000 - meaning he made £129,000 in the process.
Scott, who is now aged 52 and runs The Complaints Resolver blog, says he is free of financial commitments after downsizing to a smaller flat to lower his outgoings.
When he started his property journey, Scott was on a £10,400 salary and paid £400 a month for his mortgage.
Within the next three years, Scott slowly did up his Isle of Man home - replacing the double glazing throughout, along with a new front door and new bathroom.
He says these renovations "virtually doubled" his money in three years, with him going on to sell the property for £105,000 in September 2002.
“I upgraded to a two-bed terraced house in a lovely seaside village in the South of the Island in Port Erin for £115,000,” he said.
“I did the same again and sold that property five years later in September 2007 - just before the last financial crash - for £167,000 to upgrade to a three-bed semi with off-road parking in Douglas for £208,000.
“I turned a £6,000 deposit into £105,000 within eight years and was able to put a 50% deposit down to get a preferential tracker deal of Bank of England base rate 5.75%.
“The mortgage interest rate was sat at 6% just before the financial crash and my mortgage repayments plummeted to £416 a month based on 0.75%.
“But crucially I continued to overpay on it as I did for quite a few years beforehand.
“This enabled me to continually ramp up my equity and reduce my mortgage on the back of a rising housing market.”
Scott sold his third and final house in the Isle of Man six years later in September 2013 for £218,000.
He moved from the Isle of Man to Edinburgh in November 2013 and downsized to a ground-floor flat with a garden and no mortgage for £139,000.
“My flat is now worth between £165,000 and £170,000. To rent this flat now would be at least £800 per month, if not more,” he said.
“By downsizing and buying a small one-bed flat with a garden in the right location in a capital city, this has saved me £70,000 in rent and increased equity of £30,000 - that's £100,000 in eight years.”
“I was working from the age of 12 doing paper rounds. I had £10,000 in savings at the age of 21 which I left largely untouched for a deposit for my first house. That was a lot of money 31 years ago.”
Of course, things have changed a lot since Scott purchased his first home. Property prices have risen astronomically over 20 years - meaning it is harder than ever to get on the ladder.
The cost of a typical home in 1999 stood at around £91,000, compared to £293,000 now, according to Halifax.
First-time buyers and homeowners now also have rising interest rates to deal with - with the current Bank of England base rate having gone up from 0.1% to 2.25% in less than a year.
Rising borrowing costs mean the average rate for a two, three and five-year fixed rate mortgage all shot past 6% this week.
However, Scott says money was still tight when he got on the ladder - but is adamant that small changes to your lifestyle can help you keep more cash in your pocket.
"Some may say that it's easy for me as a single person to do, but I have struggled as well as everyone else to achieve that and worked for everything I have," he said.
"Every day we can make life choices that shape our futures."
