It is never "stupid" to pay down debt, but it's pretty tough to make a case for paying down a 15 year, 3.25 percent fixed rate mortgage. Ultimately, it's whatever you are comfortable doing, not what a bunch of old pharts say is the "right" thing to do.
If your mortgage company gives you a monthly statement, look at your statement and see how much you paid in principal. That's how much additional you'll have to pay to knock one month of the mortgage. If you had 27.5 years to pay on a 30 year mortgage, you'd find it to be a fairly small number. But since you have only 12.5 years to pay, it's going to be a pretty hefty number. And the more you pay down the principal, the bigger that number becomes.
So do a quick calculation in your head: How much sooner do you really want to pay off the mortgage? If you want to cut the time in half, you'll have to pay at least as much extra as you're currently paying in principal. In fact, you'll probably need to do that just to pay it off 5 years sooner.
If you have a book of amortization tables, or a spreadsheet program, you can calculate your extra payment exactly based on your current balance, interest rate, and a loan term that will pay it off by your target date.
For what it's worth, I've paid down my 15 year mortgage so it gets paid off a few years early. But what makes sense for me doesn't necessarily make sense for you. I'm an old phart who wants his mortgage paid off when he turns 60. I have a higher interest rate on my mortgage than you have. And I could easily afford to pay down the balance.
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Today's Featured Article - Earthmaster Project Progress Just a little update on my Earthmaster......it's back from the dead! I pulled the head, and soaked the stuck valves with mystery oil overnight, re-installed the head, and bingo, the compression returned. But alas, my carb foiled me again, it would fire a second then flood out. After numerous dead ends for a replacement carb, I went to work fixing mine.I soldered new floats on the float arm, they came from an old motorcycle carb, replaced the packing on the throttle shaft with o-rings, cut new ga
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