The Butler Project

$500 per month. What difference would it make in to your financial goals if you could scrape together an extra $16.67 each day? You could…

1. Pay off Your Mortgage

If you’re a fan of the school of thought that says get rid of all debt first, including your mortgage, you could apply the extra $500 per month toward that loan and it would make a drastic difference in how much interest you paid and how long it took to pay off your home. Here’s an example:

$250,000 Conventional Mortgage, 6.5%, 30 Year Term

If you make no additional payments, your total interest expense will be $318,861.22.

If you apply your extra $500 per month to your mortgage, your total interest expense will be cut by more than 50%, to $155,345.27, a savings of $163,515.95.

2. Pay Off Your Credit Cards

If you owe even $5,000 at 18%, it will take you about 26 years to pay off the card, and by the time you’re finished with it, you will have paid $7,115 in interest.

If that doesn’t blow your mind (it should), think of it this way: if part of that balance was a pair of shoes you bought your 14 year old son for $75, by the time you were done you would have paid a total of $129 for those shoes, and you’d finish paying them off when your son was 40.

If you applied the $500 per month to that $5,000 balance, you’d pay it off in 11 months and only end up paying $458.11 in interest. That’s an interest savings of $6,656.89.

3. Accelerate Your Retirement

Let’s say you’re saving $250 per month in a mutual fund at 8% annual return.

After 30 years you’d have $372,589 in your account.

If you added $500 per month to that monthly savings plan, you’d triple your final result to $1,117,769.59.

It’s Common Sense, So Why Aren’t You Doing It?

None of the math here is mind-blowing, right? And it leaves an obvious question: “Sure, that’s all fine, but I don’t have an extra $500 per month, or anyway to get it.”

Don’t accept that kind of thinking for yourself. You gain a huge amount of power in your life when you stop saying “I can’t.” and start saying “How can I?” I can’t shuts your brain down, depresses you, and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“How?” Is the Most Powerful Question

“How can I?” triggers the creative and enthusiastic parts of your brain, and if you’ll ask yourself that question enough times, I guarantee you’ll soon have a flood of ideas.

True, most of your ideas won’t pan out. But only one of them has to work in order for you to put things in motion for you to achieve your goals so much faster than you would have otherwise.

Start asking yourself the question “How can I make an extra $500 per month?” and invest the mental and emotional energy into making your ideas a reality. It will be worth millions of dollars and even better, peace of mind.