The obvious benefit to paying off your mortgage early is no more mortgage payments. Yes, you'll lose your minuscule tax deduction, but you'll also lose what is probably the biggest bite out of your money each month — your mortgage payment!

That's my first hit in this post about the mortgage tax deduction. Just remember, it's the government's plan to get back from you, in one way or the other, every bit of your money they let you keep.

In most cases, you can pay your mortgage off early without penalty from the lender. You can't just assume that; however. If you don't recall what your loan docs say, either read them or call your lender, ask for clarification, then get it in writing (email's fine).

Paying your home off early gets slightly more complicated when it comes to timing. Look at this from another writer on the topic:

Paying off your mortgage early is very simple. Take your current monthly mortgage payment and divide it in half. Pay half your mortgage on the 15th of each month, and the other half on the last day of the month. That's it. –ScottyB

Mathematically, what ScottyB says will work. But it probably won't work with your lender. Banks and mortgage servicing companies like to have a whole payment before they'll apply any of it. Yep, even if you make a mistake and write your check for $885 instead of $895. They'll generally, that is most lenders or servicing companies will, hold your $885 until they receive $10 more. That means if you don't notice the mistake and send the extra $10 right away, they'll not only take it out of the next check you send (next month's), but also you'll be counted late for this month. And maybe next month, too, by the time they take $10 out of that check.

What Scotty is talking about amounts to a bimonthly payment plan, paying half the mortgage two times in one month, equalling a whole payment over the course of the month. He's right that it will save you money, i.e., reduce the total amount of interest you pay. Unfortunately, he follows a common misconception, perhaps another myth about early payoffs, when he suggests how much you will save.

He says paying twice a month will cut a 30 year mortgage to about 22 years, and a 15-year to 12. The fact is, paying half a payment twice a month reduces your total amount paid by about one payment - for the whole 15 or 30 years!

He seems to be confusing biweekly and bimonthly - easy to do because of the confusing multiple meanings in English of the prefix "bi." A biweekly plan applies half of your mortgage payment every two weeks, which is more frequent than twice a month, by two installments over the course of a year. That amounts to an extra whole payment each year. And since no 13th payment per year is due, the entire amount can be applied to mortgage principal. That, my friend, is significant.

That extra payment per year, applied to principal only, shortens a 30-year loan by about seven years Seven years of what would amount to interest-only saved, since the principal paid back should always be 100%.

• Yes, you should pay your mortgage early if you can. That's a fact, not a myth.
• You should avoid the mortgage interest tax deduction…take it when you have to but pay the darn thing off so you no longer qualify for the deduction. The significance of the tax deduction is mythological. You'll have more cash by not owing a monthly house payment. That's a fact.
• Paying biweekly just because you want to to save money might be a myth. It depends on whether your bank will accept your half payment and apply it immediately, or hold it until they get a whole payment.
• Making an extra whole payment per year to principal only, by whatever means you accomplish that, will save about seven years off a 30-year loan. That's a fact.