He grew up through the Depression, post-WWII, Dad always taught us that if you don't have the cash in your pocket, you can't afford it.....often even if you have the cash. Never have paid a cent in interest, payments. Dad paid all my college expenses....as long as I had enough to cover the costs in my account. Co-oped through college. Had a good nest egg starting adulthood. Put all those interest payments in my own pocket. Amazing how many costs one avoids with that financial philosophy.....and hard work.
Make sure you mark it "principal payment only". Otherwise the bank will do one of a couple of things -- which I don't feel like typing our right now -- but it amounts to them making sure the payment is applied in a manner so that they can make the most money off you as they can.
Yep, we paid our mortgage off a few months ago. We timed it so we would have that money for when the kids started college and our oldest is graduating high school shortly.
