Paying off the mortgage takes a looooong time, so being smart and patient is critical, which is why mortgage automation tricks are so important. Once you’ve made the decision and set things up, your debt will slowly start to go down on it’s own, while you can focus your effort on new ways to make money or cut costs.
Luckily, there are 3 mortgage automation tricks that anyone can do that will take YEARS off of your mortgage. There’s truly no reason to not be implementing these!
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Automate Biweekly Payments instead of Semi-Monthly Payments
The first mortgage automation trick is the most impactful and will take years off of your mortgage all on its own – switch your payments to be biweekly instead of monthly or semi-monthly.
What exactly is the difference?
Well, since your mortgage payment is due once a month, monthly or semi-monthly payments cover each payment exactly as is needed.
With biweekly payments, you automatically pay ½ of your mortgage payment every 2 weeks. That means that for most months, it is virtually the same as semi-monthly payments.
However, since there are extra days to each month (and 52 weeks in a year as opposed to 48), there will be 2 months where you’re actually making 1.5 mortgage payments.
And that extra ½ payment? The bank will automatically apply that to your principal balance. That means that every year, you’re making one full extra payment towards your principal.
This is a great way to contribute extra to the principal, but the real reason it’s so amazing is that a large portion of the workforce is actually paid biweekly anyways…so it can work perfectly into your budget.
Apply Credit Card Points to Your Principal
This second mortgage automation trick is my absolute favorite and one that I’ve been using for years – use a credit card that lets you convert points into additional mortgage principal payments.
You will need to check with the bank that holds your mortgage to find out if the points can truly be automated. But even if your bank doesn’t offer that extra step, there are a lot of really great credit cards that offer cash bank and will link to your mortgage account…which means each month you can go in and choose to have those cash back points moved straight to your principal!
Not only is this a great mortgage automation trick, but it’s actually a way to get extra money going towards your principal that you never even had in the first place – you’re making money off of what you’re already spending!
Don’t pass this one up!
Automate an Additional Principal Payment Each Month
The last mortgage automation trick is a simple, but powerful one – you need to automate an extra principal payment every single month.
Even if you feel like you can’t do this, just start with $25 a month. Seriously.
Then, when you get a raise, bump it up to $50. Next raise, bump it up to $100.
There are two important keys to this simple but powerful step – 1. AUTOMATE IT. Please, please, please. Don’t trust yourself to just do it each month. Automate it.
And 2. START. Even if it’s small. The first step is the hardest.
These mortgage automation tricks are so, so easy, so I really hope you get a chance to setup each of them for yourself! If you’re determined to pay off your mortgage early, then they will help immensely. Good luck!
You may also be interested in:
- 10 Things You Should Be Doing to Pay Off Your Mortgage Early
- How I Cut My Grocery Bill by $500 Every Month
If you’d like more tips on saving & making money, getting out of debt, and reaching early retirement, subscribe to my Financial Freedom Mailing List for notification of new posts. Thanks for your time!
