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You DO want to avoid paying interest at all costs. If you need the space, buy the space -- even with a mortgage. But if you're single for 1, 5, 10, or 20 years -- why not just save your money (in a form that allows preservation of wealth, countering the forces of constant dollar devaluation -- I'm talking about silver and gold) and take on the debt WHEN you need it? I think it's better to buy a tiny home and save up your money, than A) rent or B) pay unnecessary interest when you don't really need to. What are you going to do with a whole house, when you're single? You're paying hundreds, maybe over a thousand, in interest every month for that wasted, extra space. Why?

In other words, you're still building equity (wealth) if you sock the money away. Only without paying hundreds of dollars/month interest! By the time you NEED the house, you'll have such a down payment, that you'll not be paying much interest. You do realize that interest is calculated every month, based on your outstanding balance. If you owe $80,000 on a house, you'll pay twice as much interest per month compared to if you only owed $40,000.

Young people out there -- if you haven't done so, you need to look into this: During Year One of a 30-year mortgage, how much of a $1,000 house payment is taken off your actual loan, and how much goes to interest? The answer will open your eyes, believe me!

https://financialmentor.com/calculator/mortgage-payment-calculator-amortization-schedule

I typed in $120,000
6% interest
30 year term
0 taxes, 0 insurance, 0 PMI
$719.46 monthly payment

After 180 of the 360 payments, the outstanding balance is: $85,258.95
So only 29% of your loan is paid off, after making half of the payments!
Those 180 payments cost you $129,502.80 by the way. Yes, that's more than you borrowed. Just another $129,502.80 to go, and you'll be paid off!
See why you want to send in EXTRA PAYMENTS off the principal, as early and often as you can?

Forget savings accounts, the stock market, and vacations. You need to be super frugal in your early years, and get that interest under control.

Now combine that data with your typical Catholic family. Say you bought that house when you got married. At this "halfway point" you still owe 71% of your mortgage, or $85K of the original $120K. Your oldest child is 14. If bad teeth run in the family, it's already time to worry about braces. And your homeschool is getting a bit overpopulated for just one mom to handle, especially with taking care of babies, breastfeeding, etc. So you're probably going to want to fork out for online "live" classes for your older kids, especially your son(s) who are getting serious about high school and future college and careers.

And after 15 years of marriage, you could have anywhere from 7 - 12 children. You might have outgrown that house already. If you sell your house and move, the cycle starts over again! Just when you were going to start really digging in to the PRINCIPAL of the 30-year mortgage, you start over with the small snowflake at the top of the mountain again. It will take another 15 years to build up momentum.

See the evils of usury? No wonder the g0y|m never have anything -- any real wealth, land, property, resources -- or power.  Yes, I said power. Power is a good thing sometimes. Power is the opposite of "my hands are tied" or having no options. You need the power to let your wife stay home, to homeschool your children, to resist the State when it becomes tyrannical, to do charity for others, etc.

Thank you for writing this, Matthew.  I worked in the financial services industry for over 30 years (MBA in finance) and I saw this kind of thing "up close and personal", and how so many people pay so much money for their homes.  You are basically renting and, unless it's more towards the end of the amortization cycle, not getting much in equity to show for it.  Through great frugality and cooperation between the generations (in both directions), my son and I own one home free and clear, just keep up taxes, insurance, and maintenance (and pray you don't need a new roof or HVAC system at the same time!), and my mother owns another one, same circuмstances, no mortgage.  I have taught him, don't ever let anyone get these homes away from you --- there is no shortage of women in this world who would do precisely that, don't lose everything your grandparents and I ever worked for.  Just yesterday we drove by a bank whose chief loan officer, I know her, is legendary for saddling everyone who comes through the door with a HELOC (home equity line of credit).  That is an excellent way to lose your home and end up out on the street. 

Several years ago, when I was visiting Poland, I had to go to the local bank, and they had signs up in the lobby advertising HELOCs.  I thought, that's right, people, you've gotten out from under communism, and now here come the usurers, they'd have no problem with taking away everything you have.  I went to Media Markt (their version of Best Buy) and they were offering store credit cards --- Poles didn't have that kind of money just lying around, to buy home theater equipment, stereos, and so on --- get people addicted to consumerism, things they never had before, and get them up to their ears in debt.  At least under communism, nobody had anything, but nobody owed anything either.  Entertainment was your friends and family around the dinner table, whatever ham, sausage, cheese, bread, butter, pickles, salad, sweets, and of course vodka, you could get your hands on, good conversation, everybody got to talk, no interrupting, in other words, people valuing each other for what they were, not what they had.

You get the idea.  Treat debt as the serpent that it is.  I just had to go out and buy a new Camry, kind of an emergency (though I didn't let the dealers know that), couldn't just pull money out of... whatever... and had to take on $26K in debt.  I would have rather had a root canal!  Over the next few months, now that my dear father (who hated debt just as much as I did, he'd plead with me "let me loan you money, no interest, don't pay interest on credit cards", advice I have followed, he even loaned my wife money to buy a car, again, no interest) has left us, when the dust settles, I'm going to find a way to refinance the car at a lower interest rate, or even pay it off entirely.  I teach my son to avoid interest --- I have taught him in business math class that interest is "rent on money", and that people who have mortgages --- and this is an over-simplification to teach the concept --- are paying three times what their house is worth over 30 years, IOW, for a $200K house, you end up paying $600K.  Again, if you can avoid it, do avoid it.  I have taught him that Americans typically buy the most expensive house they can afford --- that's the American thing, live large, live the high life, have fun! --- and then make huge payments on it.  Guess who makes money off of that!  I've seen too many people get laid off, they are escorted out of the office crying, sobbing, and one of the things they're sobbing about, they can't make that huge house payment anymore, they live paycheck to paycheck, no paycheck anymore, total financial ruin.  No thank you.

Years ago, at a catholic conference, I heard E Michael Jones give a history lesson about Germany in the 1800s and interest.  He showed how such banking practices were introduced and then, not a few decades later, the German leaders (I don’t think the country was unified then) were broke.  He finished the lecture by saying, “No one, not even the strongest empire, can defeat compound interest.”  These financial troubles led to WWI.