Swap It, Don’t Stop It: How to Spend Less on Things You Love

There are many exciting things about buying a new home, from meeting your new neighbors to upgrading your home decor (with reason, of course) to starting to build equity in what’s likely to become one of your top sources of wealth. The flip side, of course, is that suddenly owing a bank thousands upon thousands of dollars can be stressful—as is the idea that it’ll likely stay that way for many years. That may have you wondering whether it’d be wise to pay off your mortgage sooner. The short answer? It depends. On one hand, paying off your mortgage early means you can’t use that money to accomplish other, perhaps more pressing goals. “People are woefully undersaved,” says Greg McBride, Bankrate’s Chief Financial Analyst. “Paying down low-rate, tax-deductible debt [like…