Given the current economic climate I know paying down your mortgage is not a priority for a lot of people right now but if not today then sometime in the future you can apply these strategies.

There are two main ways to pay down your mortgage.
• Accelerate your payment frequency to weekly or bi- weekly (both have the same affect) so you pay every other week or every two weeks. On a typically 25 Year amortization this strategy can shave roughly 3 years off your mortgage payments. Not bad for just a payment frequency change.
• Lump sum payments. You can apply lump sum payments by increasing your mortgage payment, applying a lump sum payment periodically or a combination of both.

Here are some examples.
• $500,000.00 mortgage say on a 5 Year fixed at 3.00% over 25 years. Current monthly payment $2366.23. Mortgage balance in 5 years $427,372.90. Amortization remaining 20 Years.
• Bi-weekly accelerated payment $1183.11 so half of the monthly payment above. Mortgage balance in 5 Years $414,521.14. Your mortgage balance is $12,851.76 lower. Amortization remaining 17 Years and 4 months.
• How about you increase that bi-weekly payment by just $50.00 so now the payment is $1233.11. Mortgage balance in 5 years $407,516.50. Now the difference between the initial monthly regular mortgage balance is $19,856.40 and that is just in the first 5-year term. Amortization remaining 16 years. Naturally you can increase your payment by more then $50.00 if you have the cash flow. Typically mortgage lenders will allow anywhere from 15% to 20% additional pre payment of the mortgage amount annually.

So, you do not have to win the lottery or be able to make large lump sum payments to pay down your mortgage faster and save thousands in mortgage costs.