Comments on: 5 Tips To Pay Off Your Mortgage

By: You need a budget

You need a budget — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:07:45 +0000

All 5 tips are good advice. My lender allowed me to make arbitrary extra principal payments with each monthly payment and I paid it off 4 years early. I didn’t calculate the interest savings, but I’m sure it was significant.

By: Tax Guy

Tax Guy — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:41:15 +0000

@ Mike,
Nice tool.

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Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:59:04 +0000

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By: Mike Kolcun

Mike Kolcun — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:52:06 +0000

Check out this mortgage calculator. It’s a great visual way to see how changing your payments, or adding prepayments can shorten your mortgage. http://www.drcalculator.com/mortgage/ca/

By: Tax Guy

Tax Guy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:46:09 +0000

@ George:

I’ve seen this sheet before. It is good!

You have to play with it to properly do bi-weekly and weekly payments but there are instructions with the sheet to help do that.

By: Tax Guy

Tax Guy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:31:39 +0000

@ George:

The most flexible is probably the Manulife One mortgage despite its fees. I find that if you are really disciplined you can pay down the mortgage much faster.

By: George

George — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:29:09 +0000

As to spreadsheets, I've used one from this link, which works well and is fairly straightforward: http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/Canadian-mortgage.html

By: George

George — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:28:17 +0000

Our current mortgage is with Firstline (the broker channel for CIBC) and we’re permitted to increase our payments by 25% of the original payment amount each year, and to make lump-sum payments ($100 minimum) on any payment date. The lump-sum payments are limited to 20% of the original loan balance each year, and are in addition to the above-noted 25% yearly payment increase.

If you maximize both of these options on a 5-year mortgage, the mortgage will be fully paid off before the 5-year term is up…

By: Tax Guy

Tax Guy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:27:08 +0000

@ George:

I agree that a spreadsheet is a motivating factor although mine tend to get a little too complex. In most cases, I use a financial calculator to figure my remaining mortgage balance.

By: Tax Guy

Tax Guy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:24:33 +0000

@ AS:

I agree that the % of original principal is probably a better option, but my payments can increase by 20% per year of the prior year’s payment. If my original mortgage payment was $1,000 I could increase it to $1,200 in the first year and $1,440 the next.