this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Congrats! Some unsolicited money advice I wish I had known earlier in my career:
If you have a mortgage and the interest rate is less than 7ish percent and you're wanting to pay it early, something to consider:
You might put whatever extra you were planning into a Roth IRA until it's maxed and also max out your 401k if your employment has that. Historical yield is 7ish% and compound interest will help you immensely 20-30 years down the line.
Paying off the house early is nice feeling but you can possibly refinance for lower rates later if it's currently similar to or higher than historical investment yields. You could also do a little bit of both but prioritizing retirement accounts is the smarter move imo. So if your mortgage rate is 5% and you want to pay that down, you're leaving 2% on the table by not putting it into either an IRA or an index fund instead.
This is assuming you're not carrying other debts at higher rates like credit cards, those should be your priority. Next would be 3 months of all bills saved up, you can find some decent interest rates on savings accounts. I have Acorns and it's at 5% so the 3 months reserves will stack interest for you too.
This is great advice. Hearing about people paying off their super low rate mortgages early is kind of shocking. With rates higher now that's literally just throwing money away.
Oh yeah and if you math it out over 30 years, 2% can be a difference in the hundreds of thousands