4 years into my mortgage I finally looked at the numbers closely.

I’ve paid $95,000. My loan balance went down $31,000. That means $64,000 went to interest, taxes, and insurance. Money I will never see again. Money that built nothing for me.
Nobody told me this before I signed. They showed me the monthly payment. They showed me the home price. They walked me through the closing costs. Nobody sat me down and said “by the way, for the first several years almost every dollar you pay goes to the bank first.”
That’s not buying a house.
That’s renting money from a bank while slowly, painfully, dollar by dollar convincing them to let you own something you’re already living in.
The bank gets paid first. Every month. For 30 years. And somewhere around year 12 you finally start paying more principal than interest.
Year 12.
Read that again.