[Lax]

If you have low interest, you should look into maxing out HSA, 401k (Roth 401k), IRA (Roth), cash in HYSA or CD or Treasuries etc. My neighbor has 2% (15 year). He knows interest may never come down so low and therefore, he is maxing out all the other buckets.

[Juliett]

Do you max out your employer sponsored retirement account?
If no, that’s where I’d shift my focus.

[Sean]

1 and 2 are far better than 3. Refinancing will probably slow down the payoff.

If you are going to try to pay it down quickly, paying as much as you can as soon as you can will be the technical best.

Probably doesn’t make sense to try to pay it down early, but that depends on a lot of factors.

[Adam]

The one thing nobody’s mentioned yet is for most people this decision should be made with your interest rate in mind. A fairly frequently cited threshold is 4%…if your rate is beneath that then it may make more sense to invest those funds. Assuming your investments return greater than your mortgage rate, in the long term you will come out ahead.

[Michelle]

I’ve done any and all depending on where the additional is coming from. I always always pay at least enough extra just to round up to the next hundred.

Whenever I can, I pay more. Recently we purchased a second home and despite scores over 800, the interest rates were terrible because it’s a trailer and not our primary. With one lump we received I just made one extra huge payment.

When rates were super low I refied my primary with a cash out and used it to make another lump on the higher rate trailer. That time I recasted because of our circumstances at the time with work, covid, surgeries cutting my income, etc, so we got a lower required payment in case we ran into trouble, but I still just kept paying extra every month.

[Marty]

There is no trick to it. Just set it and forget it and move on.

[Jennifer]

WA state, Vancouver area, which is a northern suburb of Portland. The area I live in is 15 min to PDX, is on bus lines, and is walkable to many shops, restaurants and grocery stores. Bike lanes and paths are good too. We love it here. Does get drizzly and grey in the winter, but temperatures are moderate.

[Sonia]

My husband and I spent 18 months living in different parts of the US all for free using TrustedHousesitters.

We stayed in beautiful homes in exchange for caring for other peoples pets. In 18 months I think we probably paid for no more than 30 days of accommodations (and often bc we chose to go see a specific place over the weekends, not because we couldn’t find a housesit).

Might be a little harder since you have your own dog, but there are homeowners who are open to having sitters come with their own pets. Happy to share more details or give you a discount code for signing up if you’d like to check it out. It’s a flat annual fee.

[Author]

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