Extra Mortgage Payments or a Maxed-Out Roth IRA First? The Real 10-Year Math
Thirty-year fixed mortgage rates averaged 7.40% for the week ending October 8, 2026, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey — up from 7.28% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier. At that kind of rate, a homeowner with extra cash each month faces a real choice: send it to the mortgage principal, or route it into a Roth IRA, where 2026 contribution limits just rose to $7,500 (plus a $1,100 catch-up for savers 50 and older), per the IRS's 2026 inflation adjustments. Both paths are framed online as obviously correct depending on who's writing. Neither framing survives an actual amortization schedule and a Roth growth projection run side by side, which is what follows below, using one stated example and the same $500-a-month commitment in both scenarios. Illustration only — a generic two-story single-family home, not the property used in this article's worked example. Photo: SanjibLemar, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Original file page . ...