thinking

Your 30 year loan ends up costing close to three times what you borrowed.
Banks are businesses that make a lot of money, slowly.

PaulS do not be telling me that......Im pretty good at maths to be honest.
even at 10% per anum....that would be correct ONLY if you paid back interest and minimum payment of capitol....actually that would be four times the amount...so all interest calculated on total amount over total timespan added at beginning and then divided up by the time of loans life.
Im told things dont work like that anymore...interest is calculated on amount still owing...so the faster you pay capital back the less it will cost in long term... even a little extra will make large difference over life of loan.
given a repayment figure....only a mug would ONLY pay that amount....that figure assumes you will be paying back for entire life of loan...up the repayment amount and everything reduces including the repayment figure per week/fortnight/month.

Yep! it is for folks who make the payments as they are due with no extra on the principal. If you are smart and add extra payment on the principal you spend less for the money you borrow. I paid off a 15 year mortgage in just 7 years.

PaulS wrote:

Yep! it is for folks who make the payments as they are due with no extra on the principal. If you are smart and add extra payment on the principal you spend less for the money you borrow. I paid off a 15 year mortgage in just 7 years.

That is exactly what we did Paul. A $200K mortgage was paid off in 12 years instead of 25 years.

It doesn't take a lot of money to do that. The fact is, you save a lot more than you spend. I think it's kept a secret because the banks make more money if folks just pat the standard billing.

did the gonkulations today...and its nowhere near that bad.
slightly rounded figures
$265,000 over 22 years
$300 per week repayments
so 300x52x22= $343200 total repayments ASSUMING interest rates stay similar to what they are now
.....interesting times ahead.