My brain is turned off at the moment. I did read #1 and #2. Seems Will knows his shit :)

old shit.. but paying something off early is always smarter.

I bought my Jeep and they set it up so I'd owe approximately $10,500 in interest when I finished paying it off.

I paid $1000 to $2000 a month on it and when I paid it off I ended up paying only $700 in interest. That really pissed off the guy that collected my payment each month.

paying something off early is not *always* smarter. In most cases for most people it very likely is, but not all cases. It really comes down to the interest rate and what else could be done with the money. For example, if you have a house loan with 4.5% interest rate and you have 20K in credit card debt at 20% interest. DO NOT PAY more towards your home each month. Pay the min and send the rest of that money over to paying off that high interest credit card debt.

Also, which is a whole nother topic, if you borrow money at a low rate like 4% but can invest the money and get a better return like 8% you would be better off investing the money instead of paying down a low interest loan early.