For those who like to say it pays to wait, they might want to put an asterisk next to that idiom when referring to interest rates.

In today’s world of quantitative easing and bond/credit traders wired to marketplaces at near the speed of light, one scrap of news or the most subtle of rumors can result in you paying tens of thousands of dollars more in interest over the lifetime of your loan if you sit on the sidelines too long.

Case in point: mortgage interest rates.

15 year mortgage interest rates

30 year mortgage interest rates

Where rates will end up over the short term is still a crap shoot. No one, but a select few, knows for sure if the Federal Reserve will fight to keep interest rates artificially low. It is assumed they will try, but even still, there are no assurances their efforts will succeed if they do.

But regardless of the powers that be meddling in [coughs] free markets, interest rate volatility in such a short time highlights one key fundamental point from an Everyday Joe’s personal finance perspective: when interest rates are making lows not seen since our grandparents were young adults, it’s probably time to do more than twiddle your thumbs pondering hypothetical savings.