Paying your mortgage off early is like traveling through time
Notes:
Amortization - Regular payments over a specified period of time to repay a debt like a mortgage. The payments cover both principal and interest. You can request an amortization schedule from your mortgage lender or calculate your own with an online amortization calculator.
The photo in the comic was taken by Marcin Wichary.
This article was featured in the Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Lazy Man & Money.
hank remarked on April 22nd, 2008
Wouldn’t it be nice to HAVE that extra 10k to invest on 9/8?
How do I get THAT? 
hank’s last blog post..What do you say about dumping our National Income Tax and switching to a National Sales Tax?
Aaron Stroud remarked on April 22nd, 2008
Hank, I think it’s a common human trait to focus on big windfalls or successes and how the could change our lives. I do it myself. I think we would be better off, however, if we focus on the things we can control.
Oh, and to answer your question, just cancel your cable service for eight years and you’ll have the $10,000.
Four Pillars remarked on April 26th, 2008
Very cool post! I like.
Mike
Pete remarked on June 14th, 2008
great post - i love how this post isn’t that long, but it has the great affect of getting you very motivated to make extra payments. Great stuff!
tehnyit remarked on July 7th, 2008
The cool thing is that you don’t necessary have to make an one-off payment of $10K, something smaller, and perhaps more manageable, like say $2K over a 5 month period would also have a similar effect. The key is the earlier you make the extra repayment, the further in time your teleport will get you. Great Post!
tehnyit’s last blog post..Rental crisis and what you can do to avoid it.
Aaron Stroud remarked on July 7th, 2008
tehnyit, I’m glad you like the post and you’re right, every little bit counts. We’re approaching the one year mark with our mortgage. This past year we had several expensive surprises: a new daughter, non-potable well water (requiring an expensive filtering system), and extra utility connection fees.
So we didn’t have any spare cash to put into the mortgage. But if we’d simply come up with an extra $5,000 towards the mortgage, we could have trimmed off two years worth of payments!