I paid off my mortage in 4 years — now I help others do the same

Jinesh Vohra doesn’t believe Brits should be shackled to high interest payments (Picture: Metro)

Welcome back to Me and My Money, where we take a peek into the nation’s wallets and bank accounts.

This week we speak to Jinesh Vohra, 41, who managed to pay off the mortgage on his £440,000 in just four years with some drastic lifestyle changes.

He was so shocked by the mortgage process and the potential to be chained to repayments, that he left a lucrative career at Goldman Sachs to found free app Sprive, designed to help others pay off their mortgage early.

You might recognise him from a recent epiosde of Dragons’ Den.

Hi Jinesh, tell us about your relationship with money growing up?

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, my dad came to the UK with £5 in his pocket. He had three jobs and would work until midnight each night, we didn’t have a car and wouldn’t have Christmas or birthday presents. I grew up with the idea of only spending what we could afford. For university I went to Warwick to study Economics before getting a graduate job with Goldman Sachs, with a starting salary of £40,000.

Jinesh left Goldman Sachs to start his business (Picture: BBC)

What was it like working for such a prestigious firm?

It’s very common to work 70-plus hour weeks and you are pushed to be the best you can be, which suited me. I thought I’d be there for three or four years, but 14 years later I was still there, chasing the next promotion. It was a great organisation, I worked very hard and learnt a lot, including how to think outside the box and be the best version of myself. By the time I left I was earning up to £110,000 a year.

When did you buy a house and see the mortgage agreement which sparked off Sprive?

When I started working at Goldman Sachs I lived with my parents in Northwest London, as is usual in British Indian culture. I wasn’t in any rush to live on my own and I was saving a lot of money. In 2011, I married my wife Leena, an accountant, and we bought a home together in Bushey, Hertfordshire. It cost £440,000 and when I looked at the mortgage offer agreement, for £330,000, I realised that for every £1 I borrowed, I’d be paying 50p in interest, costing £150,000 overall in interest.

Jinesh didn’t want to be paying a mortgage for 25 years (Picture: Supplied)

What did paying off the mortgage early look like?

A 25-year mortgage didn’t make sense, I didn’t want to be shackled to it and it felt like my money was going into a black hole. Leena and I both had good jobs so I explained I wanted to pay off the mortgage ‘very aggressively’, and we decided to live on one salary. We had to change behaviour, wouldn’t get takeaways and stopped holidays. I saved £70,000 of interest alone and we paid off the mortgage in four years.

How did the idea of Sprive come about?

In 2018, a colleague I had worked with had a dream that he should speak to me about working together. But we didn’t know what the idea was, so every day we would sit down and brainstorm. Some ideas were terrible, but the idea for Sprive, to help others pay off their mortgage without changing their lifestyle, came from my own experience. It took nine months to work out it was a good idea and I handed in my notice to Goldman Sachs in 2019. My dad asked what I was doing, but I thought if I took the risk, good things would come of it. Because we had paid off the mortgage, I could chase my dreams and I launched Sprive in 2021.

I told Leena that in one year I would be earning a wage, but it was four years later before I would earn a wage. Entrepreneurship is not for the fainthearted, now I earn about £35,000 a year, less than I did when I was 20.

What does Sprive do?

It helps people overpay their mortgage, so they are mortgage free earlier, but without changing their lifestyle. Approximately 50% of new mortgage products being sold have 40-year terms, taking people until their 60s, 70s or 80s to pay off. The average person struggles to save, so for example by using Sprive to get cashback on their shopping, they can pay towards their mortgage by doing their weekly shop.

Customers can complete their everyday shopping through the app by purchasing a digital shopping card (like a gift card) for their chosen brand. We work with a huge range of household brands, including supermarkets like ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Iceland.

They can then earn instant money back to pay to their lender in one tap. The app also scans the market every day to find the best current mortgage deals and guides users through the overpayment process.

Do you enjoy working for yourself?

My day never looks the same and it doesn’t feel like work, because I find it really fun and interesting. I’m a dad of two, and before I was working 70-hour weeks but now I can do school pick up and drop off and I’m around to see my children grow up.

What are your monthly incomings and outgoings?

I earn about £2,400 a month. My council tax is £330 monthly, with water and energy costing £270. I pay £35 for internet, £25 for streaming and £14 for the television licence. Home insurance is £50 a month, a home maintenance sinking fund is £150 and car insurance is £60. I save £180 in a pot for MOT, services and fuel, and we spend around £500 a month on groceries. My phone costs £25 a month and travel costs £80. We have a £300 savings fund for Christmas and birthdays and spend around £150 on bits for the children and other miscellaneous things.

Highest high?

Dragons’ Den has to be the highest high. After Dragons’ Den last month we were at one point the most downloaded finance app in the app store and we had 135,000 new users. People are feeling the pain because of the cost-of-living crisis.

Jinesh secured investment from three dragons on Dragons’ Den (Picture: BBC)

Lowest low?

There were moments when I was building when we were close to running out of money.

Top tip?

If you can, stay away from unsecured debt. Credit card debt has the ability to ruin lives. It’s worrying, the world of social media makes you want to buy things you can’t have. Most financial organisations make money off debt, the only person that wins is them.

Save or splurge?

Save. Live life, experiences are important, but save.

What are your future dreams?

I dream of helping millions with mortgage debt and becoming a household name as a consumer champion. I wish the government would come knocking on my door for help in educating others. When I die, I want to look back and say I radically changed one person’s life. We are trying to change an industry, ordinary people are trying to make a difference, but it’s still a David and Goliath fight. I’m small, the mortgage companies are bigger, and I have to grow fast.

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