Refinance

[Kakarat]

Strife, my best advise is to even shop around for a nice low interest rate and always split your payments of your mortgage to as many the lender will allow. You may save anywhere from $50-500 on interest throughout the year. And that adds up over 15-25 years.

I always argue the other side of this argument. To me there is no reason to take 5 years off a 30 year mortgage at the back side, when interest rates are at an all time low, and 25 years of inflation will make your last 5 years of payments feel like paying the monthly electric bill. Unless you are just rolling in the dough, have no other debts, and have no kids to send to college etc...having more capital at an earlier age that can be invested and compounded over 25 years will give you insanely higher returns that a 3.5% interest payment.

Breand, yes the interest rates are at an all time low. Why not take advantage of that and put as much into principle as you can?... who knows, 10 years from now rates could be up to 7% again.

Maybe I should explain myself a little more with an example. Say you are paying $1200 month. Split into 4 payments or more. But 4 payments of $300 a month for simplicity. By the time the compounded daily interest adds up with a one time payment of $1200 you are paying more unwarranted interest than the 4 payments of $300. Even if it is $50 a year you are still keeping that money in your pocket instead of handing it over to the bank. It is just the way the system is set up, the bank never tells you that you can split your monthly payment up 4-6 times to save that little bit. The more money they make, the happier they are.