<prompt> Human: Im coming up on the three year anniversary of owning my house. Ever since my first mortgage payment Ive added 300 month to additional principal. This equates to a little over two extra mortgage payments a year for me. Im not sure why Im doing this... I had always heard that this can significantly reduce the length of your mortgage but I cant imagine staying in my first house for the full 25-year term. Is there any benefit to doing this or should I be investing in a low risk bond. Extra info: I owe 140k on the house I bought for 175k. No PMI, 25-year loan, at 5.25. Im already maxing out my 401k and Roth Ira.  <response>: Yes, keep paying off your debt. Focus on what your payment each month goes towards. Say you have a mortgage thats like 1200month and 300 goes to escrow for taxesinsurance, 200 goes to principle and 700 goes to interest. When you look at your payment each month youll start to notice that each month your principle goes up 3-5 dollars or something and the amount paying interest goes down. Making those extra payments now reduces that amount youre paying in interest each month which is an immediate savings as the increased principle goes to you in the form of equity. If you decide to move that equity can just be rolled into your new house.If youre paying 5.25 on your mortgage, you arent going to find many bonds offering much more that arent junk. The benefit would be that its more liquid in case you wanted to do something else with that money. But Id advise against it until you have your debt paid off. 