After flirting with the idea of moving last fall, we decided to stay put in our home. So we just refinanced into a 15-year, fixed-rate loan. We had 22 years left on our 30-year mortgage, so we shaved off about seven years for an interest savings of $75,000 over the life of the loan. Our interest rate dropped from 5.125 percent to 4.25 percent. We didn’t take out any cash. We like the idea of being entirely debt-free, including no mortgage, around the time our kids finish college.

Our new payment is a little bit higher, of course, because the length of the loan is shorter. But I’m thinking about accelerating the mortgage by rounding up the payment to an even number. I feel like it’s a fresh beginning with a new bank, and since I have to write a bigger monthly check anyway, why not train my brain to think of the payment as a nice round number right from the start?

Save over time by rounding up a mortgage payment

For example, let’s say you took out a 15-year, fixed-rate loan for $175,000 at 4.25 percent interest. Your monthly payment would be $1316.49. Now let’s say you round your payment up to $1,400 a month — an extra $83.51, or a little less than $3 a day. You would be finished with the loan almost a year early and save $5,442 in interest. Check out Bankrate’s mortgage calculator to see how much you would save by rounding up your mortgage payment.

You could apply the same principle to a credit card. If your minimum payment is an odd number, say $41.26, round it up to at least $50. Obviously you want to pay down high-interest debt as fast as possible. But if you’re struggling and feel you can only make the minimum, use the rounding up trick to reduce the debt. Every little bit helps.

Some people think paying off a mortgage early is a bad idea with the prices of homes continuing to fall. U.S. home prices fell for the seventh straight month in January in 19 of the 20 cities tracked by the S&P/Case-Shiller index, according to a report earlier this week. It may indeed be a bad idea, depending on where you live and how soon you plan to move. Our home is less than 40 minutes by train to New York City, so while prices have definitely moved lower in our area, it’s not the shocking decline you see in places like Arizona, Nevada, Florida and California.

Moreover, I don’t think of an extra mortgage payment as a particularly good investment (I could probably do better in the stock market). I think of having the mortgage paid off before we retire as a form of insurance — a hedge against a job layoff, a pay cut or an unexpected medical expense.

Are you accelerating your mortgage payoff or would you like to? Why or why not? Comment here or email me at laura at laurarowley dot com.

The April issue of the Atlantic offers a sneak peek at a new study by Boston College on the super rich — those with fortunes above $25 million. Respondents gave written replies to survey questions relating to love, work and family. The conclusion: The very rich have different problems from you and me, but problems nonetheless.

I know — cry me a river. We could all figure out how to be happy with $25 million-plus. But in any case, the study, which will be published over the next several months, reveals some of the wonderful benefits of being merely comfortable – and even suggests that the pursuit of extreme wealth isn’t a worthwhile use of time (especially if it crowds out other values).

First, there’s the issue of career fulfillment. Like everyone, I’ve occasionally fantasized about winning the lottery and filling my days with tennis and manicures and home decorating (none of which I do now). But I’ve realized life is pretty simple when you have to work for financial reasons. It removes all ambiguity, uncertainty, waffling. I don’t have to explain to my kids why I do what I do — I enjoy my work, but it also pays the mortgage.

Growing a career demands energy, effort, discipline, and ever-changing skills. It keeps you on your toes. The payoff is satisfaction, confidence and — for every difficult work relationship you learn to tolerate and manage — a certain amount of wisdom and empathy.

By contrast, freedom from the need to work can produce anxiety. As one survey respondent wrote: “In my own life, I have been intimidated about my abilities because I inherited money.” Ultra-wealth can facilitate a slide into shiftlessness, thrill-seeking or risk-taking, or at minimum raise the question of “whether one’s time is well spent,” as the Atlantic put it.

Moreover, the very wealthy who do work can leave the moment a job gets boring or frustrating, and have the wherewithal to act on their take-this-job-and-shove-it impulses. The Atlantic story gives the example of an intelligent man who earned an M.B.A. but hopped from one tech job to the next. “At some point, something would happen at each job that those who have to work for an income would learn to tolerate,” said a researcher at Boston College. “And he’d just say, ‘I don’t want to deal with this.’ Eventually he had to say, ‘I don’t have a career.’”

Second, there’s the issue of friendship and love. I am confident that my finances (or lack of them) play no role in the fact that my husband or friends hang around with me. By contrast, the respondents across the board felt their relationships were somehow altered by their wealth. Some people who came into a windfall found certain friends disappeared and others materialized when the money showed up. “Very few people know the level of my wealth, and if they did, in most cases I believe it would change our relationship,” wrote one respondent. Another noted: “I start to wonder how many people we know would cut us off if they didn’t think they could get something from us.”

Others struggled with when to reveal their wealth during a romance: “If you tell (someone) too soon, you are going to worry that they want you for your money,” a Boston researcher said. “If you wait too long, can the person really trust you?”

The biggest worry of the ultra-wealth is how the money will affect their children. They fret about raising ungrateful, entitled, unmotivated brats. (How do you get the kids to mow the lawn when you have a gardener? asked one respondent.) The money can create inter-generational dysfunction as well, with wealthy parents, who grasp the strings to the grandchildren’s trusts, holding psychological sway over their adult children.

Finally, the rich squander energy worrying about the money itself. “Sometimes I think that the only people in this country who worry more about money than the poor are the very wealthy,” said one Boston researcher. “They worry about losing it, they worry about how it’s invested, they worry about the effect it’s going to have. And as the zeroes increase, the dilemmas get bigger.” They also recognize that it’s obscene to share their worries about security, relationships and work when millions live below the poverty line. That can be a lonely perch to occupy.

Would you trade your life for the life of the super-rich?

Spring is a great season for free tomato seeds for your garden. (Think homemade salsa by summer!)  That’s just one of the hot deals offered this week for M&H readers by Julia Scott, founder of the Bargain Babe. Check them out:

Scoop up free Haagen Dazs ice cream when you share some personal information with the company’s Facebook page. It’s unclear when this promotion ends.

Sam’s Club membership is free for one day with this coupon. You can redeem it anytime between now and Jan. 31, 2012. However, you do have to pay a 10% surcharge on everything you buy. So don’t buy more than $400 in stuff — it will cost you more than joining the club for a full year!

Hot! Grab this Sephora coupon to get a free mascara and a free Express Service, which is a quick makeup lesson. Valid only at Sephora’s inside JCPenney’s through Apr. 7, 2011.

Got good grades? Get a free DVD rental from Blockbuster Express with a current report card and an average of B or higher. Students from kindergarten to high school are eligible.

Start your very own ketchup garden with free tomato seeds from Heinz and Red Robin restaurants. While supplies last.