@rachelcruze: You probably don’t need me to tell you that every dollar you throw at your mortgage payment puts a bigger dent in your principal balance. And that means if you make just one extra payment annually, you’ll knock years off the term of your mortgage—plus save thousands of dollars in interest. Before you start making those extra payments, let’s go over some ground rules: * Check with your mortgage company first. Some companies only accept extra payments at specific times or may charge prepayment penalties. * Include a note on your extra payment that you want it applied to the principal balance—not to the following month’s payment. * Don’t get sucked into paying for a fancy-schmancy mortgage accelerator program, like biweekly payments (more on those later). With focus and intentionality, you can hit the same goal all by yourself.