Q.If I can pay off my $70,000 mortgage, with a rate of 5.82%, in 15 years instead of 30, how much could I save?

A. You could save a ton of money by paying off your mortgage in 15 years.

At the 30-year rate, your monthly payment would be $411.62 (principal and interest only) and you would pay $78,183 in interest over the life of the loan.

If you paid it off in 15 years, your payment would be $538.92 (P&I only), but you would pay only $35,104 in interest, saving you $43,000 over 15 years.

If paying the extra $127 is a little steep, you could still save money by adding an extra $75 to each payment. In this case, you would be paying $50,314 in interest and pay off your mortgage in 21 years.

You can go to our mortgage calculators and try different scenarios. There's even a calculator that will allow you to directly compare the payments and costs of a 15-year versus 30-year loan.

And one more thing: If you don't have a mortgage yet and think you can afford the 15-year payments, compare rates on 15-year mortgages using our rate tables. You can usually get a 15-year mortgage for a half-point less than you would pay for a 30-year.