Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Pay Your House Off Sooner

Probably the biggest purchase any family will make is the purchase of a house. It's scary committing to a mortgage that requires you to make payments for 30 years. Of course, the alternative is to pay rent for that same 30 years and then have nothing to show for it in the end.

It's a good idea, once you buy the house and get the mortgage, to keep an eye on interest rates and be ready to Remortgage when the rates go down. We did that a couple of times, and it was nice to have a lower monthly payment. Now I read this recommendation that, even after you refinance and lower your interest rate, you should keep paying the same amount you were paying before. Unless you were really stretched beyond your means before, in which case I think you should have bought a house you could actually afford, it won't hurt to keep paying that same amount. The good part is that you will pay your house off sooner because that extra amount on your payment will be applied to the principle and bring the loan amount down.

We didn't do that, but we have started paying extra on our mortgage every month. We'll get our house paid off sooner and save money on interest in the long run. I like that.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Anna! I keep calling you Beth, that was your daughter, LOL> BTW, I have a new blog and I'm inviting you to check it out to list your blog to my directory and enter a few contests. Thanks for the time. :)
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    ReplyDelete

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