How to Pay Off Your Mortgage Early: Start With One Phone Call
Are you paying your mortgage every other week and still not getting ahead?
You might be thinking, "Ralph, extra payments always help." Not always. It depends on one thing most people never ask about, and it's the first step in how to pay off your mortgage early.
Biweekly Payments Only Work If Your Lender Posts Them
Half a payment every two weeks gives you 26 half payments a year. That's 13 full payments instead of 12.
Here's the catch. Many servicers hold each half payment until the full amount arrives. If yours does, you changed your schedule and saved nothing.
Some lenders post each payment as it comes in, and some charge a setup fee to do it. So call and ask:
"Do you apply partial payments, or do you hold them until the whole payment is made?"
Be careful with outside companies that offer to handle biweekly payments for you. The CFPB once sued one that it said charged setup fees up to $995 on promised savings.
What It Can Save You
Take a $300,000 loan at 7.4%. Applied as received, biweekly payments cut the loan to about 23.4 years and save around $116,000 in interest.
If your lender charges a one-time $400 setup fee, I'd pay it.
Go for the 30 and Pay It Like It's 15
No luck with your lender? Take the 30-year mortgage anyway. Run a 15-year amortization schedule, and send the difference as extra principal each month.
Why not just take the 15? If you lose a job or get sick, you only owe the 30-year payment. A couple I worked with refinanced into a 30 this way and paid it off in 10 years.
Your Three-Step Exercise
1. Call your servicer
Ask the partial payment question above.
2. Check for a prepayment penalty
Most loans don't have one, but some do. The CFPB explains how to check.
3. Run the 15-year number
Pick a figure you can send every month, even if it's small.
Start With the Call, Not the Guilt
You don't need a bigger paycheck.
You need one honest answer from your lender.
Then you need a plan you'll keep.
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Licensed Public Accountant
Ralph V. Estep, Jr. is a Delaware-based Licensed Public Accountant (LPA), author, rancher, and media host with more than 30 years of experience in finance, taxation, and small-business leadership. As the founder of Saggio Accounting+PLUS and the creator of the Ask Ralph Media network, Ralph helps entrepreneurs, creators, and everyday families replace money confusion with clarity, confidence, and practical next steps — without shame and without hype.
Ralph's work blends deep professional expertise with a coach's mindset and a communicator's heart. He has held leadership roles across public accounting, financial institutions, law firms, and technology organizations, bringing a rare combination of traditional accounting rigor and modern systems thinking to the people he serves. A graduate of the University of Delaware and Wilmington University (MBA), he is known for turning complex money topics into simple, repeatable frameworks that help people make wiser decisions and build lasting financial stability.
He is the host of Becoming Financially Confident, a live weekday show built on a single conviction: most money stress is not a character problem but a systems problem, and shame is what keeps people from fixing it. The show grew out of Financially Confident Christian, which Ralph hosted for more than 1,200 episodes across eight seasons and earned national recognition. The new show offers the same host and the same feed, opened up to a wider audience.
Through Ask Ralph Media, Ralph hosts several other programs. Grit and Growth Business… Read More
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