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equal payments, a mortgage is fully paid off. Let me give you a startling example of not only how effective this strategy can be, but also how surprisingly cost-efficient it is. A seventy-five-thousand-dollar mortgage amortized over thirty years at eight percent costs five hundred and fifty dollars a month. The same seventy-five-thousand-dollar mortgage amortized over fifteen years at eight percent would cost how much?"

Even I knew enough not to guess double the thirty-year amount.

"Nine hundred," Cathy hazarded.

"Seven hundred and sixteen," Roy announced. "Fifteen years of mortgage payments eliminated . . . fifteen years ... for just over a hundred and fifty bucks a month."

"And it's forced savings to boot," Cathy added, to Roy's obvious pleasure. "Boy, fifteen years of payments . . . that must be a savings of tens of thousands of dollars in interest.. . maybe even a hundred thousand."

"True, Cathy, very true, but it's extremely important to remember that those interest savings had a cost—the extra one hundred and fifty a month—they weren't just created out of thin air. As James pointed out earlier, a very strong mathematical case could be made that that same one hundred and fifty a month, placed in a different investment vehicle, would have grown to be even more than the mortgage-interest savings—especially since, as we have heard many times, that interest is tax-deductible.

"That caveat aside, it's still a pretty neat example, and strong testimony to the advantage of paying down the mortgage early, if it doesn't mean sacrificing our ten percent solution, our insurance programs, or our retirement funds.

"An excellent book on this subject is The Common-