Do you know how much your house mortgage will cost you over time? Do you care?

I was just talking about this on another Q and became curious.

I recently was looking at mortgages. A $250k loan over 30 years at 4.7% interest will mean you pay out around $220k in interest over the life of the loan. If you take out a 15 year loan instead at 3.8% (15 year loans typically have .5–1.% lower interest) the interest is around $80k. Do those numbers shock you? You save $140k over time if you go for the shorter loan.

Do you think if that math was spelled out to you when you were first looking for a house, and first researching loans, that it would have influenced your decision? Or, do you still only care about what your costs are per month?

Here is a mortgage calculator if you want to do some math.