Why You Should Ignore Today’s Interest Rate Cut (If You Have a Mortgage)
November 1, 2011 at 4:13 pm 2 comments
Read the headlines regarding today’s interest rate cut and you’ll see that on an average mortgage of $300,000, you’ll be saving $46 per month. However by doing very little you can turn this into a saving of over $37,000.
If you’ve taken out a mortgage of $300,000 over 30 years and are making only the minimum repayments then it’s going to take 30 years to pay it off. And your bank will love you! So if you reduce your repayments in line with the 0.25% cut you’ll be paying $46 less per month.
However if you maintain the same repayments on a $300,000 mortgage you can cut 2 years and 3 months off your loan and reduce your total interest bill over 30 years by $37,300.
That’s a great reason to ignore the rate cut and pay the same off as last month.
Note: Based on an interest rate of 7.25% dropped to 7.0%.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: interest rates, money, RBA.
1.
Hamish Blair | November 1, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Was it Einstein that said compound interest was one of the most powerful forces in the world?
2.
Dave Rae | November 2, 2011 at 6:25 am
Indeed. It’s too easy to take the quick win with the extra dollars in the pocket than to turn it into real long term savings.