Making regular additional payments toward your loan principal will provide enormous savings. Borrowers can pay extra on principal in various ways. Making 1 extra payment one time every year is probably the easiest to keep track of. However, some folks will not be able to pull off this huge extra payment, so dividing an extra payment into twelve extra monthly payments works as well. Finally, you can commit to paying a half payment every other week. These options differ a little in lowering the total interest paid and shortening payback length, but each will significantly shorten the length of your mortgage and lower the total interest you will pay over the life of the loan.
Some folks just can't make extra payments. But remember that most mortgages will allow additional payments at any time. You can take advantage of this provision to pay down your principal any time you come into extra money.
If, for example, you receive a large gift or tax refund just a few years into your mortgage, you could apply this money toward your mortgage loan principal, which would result in huge savings and a shorter loan period. Unless the mortgage loan is quite large, even a few thousand dollars applied early can yield huge savings over the duration of the loan.
Do you have a question regarding a mortgage program?