I Cut my mortgage by 10.5 years and saved $67,500 in interest

[Ima saver]

I never knew much about investing, so i paid my mortgage off early. Even tho we have always lived on a low income, I have been able to save so much extra by having no mortage payments for over 30 years.

[aida2003]

We've also decided to pay off our mortgage early. But in our case it's a bit different.
- We both max out 401k's and RothIRA's;
- We also do taxable investing;

Our EF and savings are a bit too high, IMO, so we'll knock down our mortgage after our CDs expire. I don't see Bernanke increasing the rate by 1% or 2% in foreseeable future, so we rather pay off our house loan and replenish savings very slowly.
After the house is paid off, that same monthly payment will go for the 2nd child's daycare.

We don't have 529 or anything for kids' education.

[b4freedom]

We don't have 529 or anything for kids' education.

For those of you who don't have a 529 and don't have any college savings, I'd suggest you look at upromise.com. Although you may not want to open their 529 plan, you'll definitely want to sign up to get the "free" money. My 2 1/2-year-old son's 529 plan is over $2k from just money saved from this site.

[disneysteve]

We've also decided to pay off our mortgage early. But in our case it's a bit different.
- We both max out 401k's and RothIRA's;
- We also do taxable investing;

Same here. My wife contributes 50% to her 401k (the max she is permitted). We fully fund Roths for each of us. We do some taxable investing. And we contribute to a 529. With some of what remains, I prepay our home equity loan. When that is paid off next year, I'll probably start prepaying the primary mortgage.

[Gailete]

I am about to buy a home for the first time. Do all banks/finance companies allow bi-weekly or weekly mortgage payments??

In my situation, I am planning to stay in my home for only 4.5 years. Would making extra payments on the mortgage or making weekly mortgage payments make any sense in my case.

Why would you consider buying a home in this market for only 4 .5 years? You could concievably end up taking a year or more to sell the place when you are done with it.

To partially answer your question though, for the most part, the first couple of years that you are paying on a mortgage it is almost all interest depending on what your downpayment was. If you go into a house with a minimal downpayment and have to pay a PMI you would have to be dumping buckets of money onto the payment to really acheive any affect in those few years. You would most likely be better off saving that extra towards your next home after that assuming you will be buying again.

If think for you we would actually need to know more about why you are buying a house for such a short time, what kind of downpayment you are going to use, and what you will be doing after to really answer your question.

[disneysteve]

Why would you consider buying a home in this market for only 4.5 years?

I agree. I'm not sure why anyone would buy a home for that short a time. You blow money on interest, closing costs, selling expenses, inspections, commissions, etc. You also take the risk that you'll get stuck with some costly repair that you'll never recoup the value of. For that short a period, I would definitely rent.

[aida2003]

For those of you who don't have a 529 and don't have any college savings, I'd suggest you look at upromise.com. Although you may not want to open their 529 plan, you'll definitely want to sign up to get the "free" money. My 2 1/2-year-old son's 529 plan is over $2k from just money saved from this site.

Well, I've heard of Upromise and some other company that offers a similar program. However, IMO such accumulation success of "FREE $$" depends on a family's spending habits. Could you share how you managed to 'earn' the $2k in Upromise?
I know that you can ask grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. to sign up with Upromise using your child's name as a beneficiary and that way the Upromise program is great, but in our case we're alone in this country (our families live in Europe) and we don't spend a lot. These were the primary reasons why we did not start the hassle with the program.

Our help to our kids will come from the cash flow (work income, taxable investments, maybe help from granny??) at the time when/if our kids opt to go to college.

[disneysteve]

Well, I've heard of Upromise and some other company that offers a similar program. However, IMO such accumulation success of "FREE $$" depends on a family's spending habits.

I agree. I signed up for Upromise in May 2003 and linked everything we could link to it. In all that time, we've earned $34.93 from them. Apparently, we just don't do the right kind of shopping or buy the right brands to rack up significant rebates.

[noppenbd]

I agree. I signed up for Upromise in May 2003 and linked everything we could link to it. In all that time, we've earned $34.93 from them. Apparently, we just don't do the right kind of shopping or buy the right brands to rack up significant rebates.

We have had the same experience. I have compared the prices when shopping through their site and at least for hotel rooms and rental cars the price you get through the upromise site is artificially inflated compared to other discount sites.