Many readers have e-mailed me and mentioned they are mortgage-free.  Sounds like they have been great savers.  I envy those folks, it really is peace of mind.    However, many baby boomers and retirees do have mortgages and as we've mentioned in the last couple of weeks our long-term interest rates have been going up despite the fed cutting rates lately.   Michele Singletary of the Washington Post has two words we may want to remember if we have a large mortgage in retirement:

For those seniors, wealthy or not, who are inclined to believe it's a good financial move to drag a mortgage into their old age, I've got two words for you: Ed McMahon.

McMahon, Johnny Carson's sidekick on "The Tonight Show" for three decades, is trying to save his multimillion-dollar Mediterranean-style mansion from foreclosure. The Beverly Hills estate has a $4.8 million mortgage and, according to a default notice, McMahon, 85, is more than $644,000 in arrears.