($1,211.00 is the 30 year monthly payment)

These numbers can make the above sacrifice worthwhile. You can look at it as a weekend problem and notice that to get to a 10 year loan from a 30 year you would have to save about $245 a weekend, which might be more than you are currently spending. A 15 year loan would have a savings requirement of $115 a weekend which is still a monumental task for some. The 20 year loan only requires about $55 a weekend to be cut from your budget, which is certainly more feasible.

The actual savings above will only occur if you a comparing taking one of the other loans versus a 30 year. Most people will have been in their 30 year a few years before awaking to their financial situation and start thinking about the refinancing to a shorter term loan. Therefore the savings would be less.

There are many other ways but I would like to suggest the one that makes the most sense to me because it is a double win. If we assume you have credit cards of $20,000 and your monthly minimum payment is $400 which includes 1% of the balance as a principal reduction and carries 12% interest (low in this market) and you continue to pay the minimum until the balance is gone it will take you at least 8 years to finish, albeit the payment amount would average about $200 a month over the 8 years. Can you see the wisdom of rolling the credit card into a new 15 or 20 year mortgage and save most of the large sums listed above? I believe it is certainly worth considering.

This exercise is primarily to show you the enormous cost and waste of a very rare resource, your money. I hope the picture of all the red ink above will make you understand the unattractiveness, financially speaking, of the 30 year loan.