Making consistent additional payments on the loan principal will provide huge returns. People accomplish this goal in a few ways. Paying one extra payment once every year is perhaps the easiest to track. If you can't afford to pay an additional whole payment in one month, you can divide that payment by 12 and pay that additional amount monthly. Finally, you can commit to paying a half payment every other week. Each of these options yields slightly different results, but they will all significantly reduce the length of your mortgage and lower the total interest you will pay over the duration of the loan.
Some folks just can't make any extra payments. But you should remember that most mortgage contracts will allow additional payments at any time. Any time you get some extra cash, you can use this rule to make an additional one-time payment on mortgage principal. Here's an example: a few years after moving into your home, you get a very large tax refund,a very large inheritance, or a cash gift; , investing several thousand dollars into your home's principal will reduce the duration of your loan and save enormously on mortgage interest over the duration of the mortgage loan. For most loans, even this relatively small amount, paid early in the mortgage, could offer huge savings in interest and in the duration of the loan.
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