When I started this blog, my primary goal was to start not only start paying down my mortgage faster through accelerating my payments to principal, but I also wanted to provide my readers a platform to share their questions, concerns, past experiences or better options that they might have. One common question that has been asked of me thus far in the short life of this blog, is “Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to invest your extra payments rather than put that money into your mortgage?”

My simple answer to this question is this: It would only be more beneficial to invest this money if you’re very disciplined with money management. I say this because I have many friends who spend their savings accounts as quickly as they put money into it. Below, I’ll discuss the pros and cons of mortgage acceleration through increased principal payments.

Pros

• You can potentially save $1,000’s to $10’s of thousands on payments to interest.
• Your dreams of home ownership will become true in a shorter time frame.
• After paid off (in a shorter time), you can use your mortgage payments to acquire a 2nd property, a rental property, or some fun toys that you’ve wanted for years.

Cons

• By investing, rather than making extra payments, you can earn $1,000’s of dollars in extra interest income.
• By paying off your mortgage early, you no longer get the tax break of writing off your interest expense.

I’m sure that there are many more pros and cons, but I can’t think of any right now. If you have any that you’d like to see added to the list, just shoot me an email and I’ll add them. I found this post helpful when looking into mortgage acceleration.