Today I mailed in mortgage payment #5, with an extra $50 to pay down the principal. After making my first two payments, I have included an extra $50, 100 & 50 with my monthly payments, and I just calculated (using this handy tool) that I have already knocked one month off my 30-year mortgage as the extra $200 I've chipped in so far has saved me $818.33 in interest. I know that most people would advise me against paying extra, since I got such a good rate (5.5%) and that money would be better off invested (though look at what the stock market has done this year), but when I sit down and calculate it all and come out with results like I see above, where an extra $1 now saves me more than $4 in the future, it's hard to resist as long as I'm able to continue to do it. Not to mention that it moves me slowly closer to ridding myself of that one big monthly bill. I'd love to move up that party from it's current scheduled date of February 2038.

This entry was posted by Brad, on Thursday, July 24, 2008. You can leave your response.