“What is tougher – saving a deposit for a home or paying off a mortgage?”

Who likes eggs? I’m generally a scrambled sort of guy. Occasionally, I go for hard boiled. And this question relates to how you boil your eggs.

You want them easy, you do it quickly. You want it hard, you just make the process longer.

The easy way to save for a deposit is simply to start saving. Go hard, sacrifice, and use a high-interest account. Once you put your mind/s to it, it usually takes one to two years.

And then there’s the hard, daft and risky way – using a First Home Saver Account.

Risky? Yes. If you open a FHSA, you can’t buy a house for at least four years (under the existing rules). If you have a deposit after two years, you’ll have to watch house prices from the sidelines for another two years, or buy anyway and forfeit your FHSA savings to super.

(The Government promised to “fix” these accounts, but it hasn’t yet.)

The first few years of paying off a mortgage are hard work. Any spare cash is usually directed to fixing up or furnishing the new digs.

It eventually gets easier, as a few pay rises kick in, or you decide you’ve got enough “stuff”.

Is saving for, or paying, the mortgage the toughest? I think it’s actually just one process.

From the time you make a decision to buy, you’re up for about four to seven years of financial strain, until the mortgage is “under control”, which is typically about five years in.

But gimme my eggs easy, any day.

Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and a licensed financial adviser.