What is the best strategy to Pay off your Mortgage ? What about that RRSP ?

One of the best strategies for paying off your mortgage quickly is to increase your Mortgage Payments as well as the frequency of payments, ie: bi-weekly rather than monthly. If you can max out your Mortgage Payments and also make lump sum payments to the Mortgage (without penalties) you can pay it off in about half the time. Only problem is where do you get all that extra cash for extra payments ? Is there anywhere you have a big chunk of money just sitting there ? Well, maybe. How about that RRSP ? .... but you can't access that until you retire ?

A few years ago I went into the nearest TD Branch and asked that question. Reluctantly the Mortgage Specialist told me of a way I could access my RRSP funds to pay off my Mortgage completely, without penalty, and pay myself the Interest rather than the bank. It's called a Self-Directed RRSP-Mortgage. Since I had an amount equal to my Mortgage sitting in my RRSP (and losing money in Mutual Funds) I decided to do some research and see if this could really work. There were some costs involved. I needed a Lawyer to help me with the Discharge of the existing Mortgage and set up a new RRSP-Mortgage that I would pay back (TO MYSELF) over the next 20 years. I set the terms of this RRSP Mortgage so that I would be paying back the Principal plus 8% Interest to MYSELF, and not the bank. I was also able to reduce the monthly payments (To MYSELF) so that I would have more cash on hand. This maximizes the amount I'll have in my RRSP at the end of the 20 year Payment Term. Luckily I did this before the Market crash in 2008 and made better use of my RRSP Savings. You can learn more about this from TDCanadaTrust.ca