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Old 04-28-2008, 03:32 PM
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TBH TBH is offline
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I know people will have lengthy responses for you, but I'd say you should ask yourself these two basic questions:

1. Is that money needed elsewhere more? If you have high-interest debt, like credit card debt, definitely pay that off first. And are you saving adequately in other areas. If your retirement savings are in good shape and you have a healthy emergency fund built up and your income is nice and stable and you STILL have extra money floating around, then you can consider pre-paying your mortgage.

2. Look at the interest rates. If you pay your mortgage early, you'll be saving yourself some money in interest. Is that more than you could earn in interest if the money was sitting in a savings or MM account? I'll use my numbers as an example. My mortgage is at a fixed rate of 5.25%. I can't get more than 4% in a savings account these days. So on the surface there's a 1.25% advantage to paying my mortgage down. Of course, the interest on your mortgage is tax deductible, so if you're in a high bracket you may be better off saving the money and not pre-paying your mortgage. But I'm in a low bracket, so this is negligible for me.
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