this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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In this case, I had a deal that had no penalties for early payoff, so in my case, paying off my car in 1/8 the time saved me 7 years of interest with no serious downside. Unless you count credit scores being BS and paying off loans early technically not being ideal credit management.
Fair enough, but I wasn't actually talking about early payoff penalty. I was speaking to the payback schedule that the loan company has you reimburse them with.
You pay your loan back on a monthly basis. In the earlier years, each monthly payment goes (for example) 80% to interest owed, and 20% owed to principal. Usually around the last fiveish years mark, your payment is applied 10% interest, 90% principal. The bank/loan giver makes sure they get their profit from offering you the loan in the earlier years. In other words, each monthly payment by you is NOT going 50%/50% interest/principal.
Don't get me wrong though, its ALWAYS good to pay off your loan early, from a total $ amount paid when you are done point of view. But if you take ten years to pay off a fifteen year loan, you've paid off most of the interest owed already, where if you pay off a fifteen year loan in five years you've paid less interest owed, % wise.
(The time frames I mention above is estimates for sake of this discussion, YMMV for your actual load, but the principal of what's being said is valid.)