First, I am also in my 40's. My spouse and I aggressively sent in every extra dime and paid off our mortgage. Our home is paid off in full.
I would highly recommend that you send in additional principle in as much and as often as you can. You don't really need to bother with paying every 2 weeks. Just send in additional principle with each monthly payment. Merely paying the equivalent of one additional mortgage payment per year will take years off of your mortgage.
Those who think that it isn't wise to prepay, well who knows if they are right. All I know is that if I would have paid my mortgage over 30 yrs I would have paid the equivalent of 3X the purchase price of the home even at a low interest rate. Does it really make sense to spend an actual $1 and "get back" 20 cents? Seems dumb to me. We pounded away at our mortgage and paid if off in 5 yrs. Nobody can tell you what the "right" thing to do is.
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