Making consistent additional payments toward the loan principal yields enormous savings. Borrowers accomplish this goal in a few ways. Making one extra full payment once every year is perhaps the simplest to arrange. If you can't pay an additional whole payment in one month, you can split that large amount into 12 smaller payments and pay that additional amount monthly. Another very popular option is to pay half of your payment every two weeks. The result is you make one additional monthly payment every year. These options differ a little in lowering the total interest paid and shortening payback length, but they will all significantly reduce the duration of your mortgage and lower the total interest paid over the duration of the loan.
It may not be possible for you to pay more every month or even every year. But you should remember that most mortgage contracts will allow additional principal payments at any time. Whenever you get some extra cash, you can use this rule to make an additional one-time payment on your mortgage principal. If, for example, you receive a surprise windfall five years into your mortgage, investing several thousand dollars into your home's principal can shorten the period of your loan and save a huge amount on interest paid over the duration of the loan. Unless the loan is very large, even small amounts applied early can yield huge benefits over the duration of the loan.
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