What does one need to do to pay off their mortgage early?

Answer 1

To pay off one's mortgage early, it can be just as simple as making a little bit of an extra payment. If one's payment is $1450 a month, rounding it up to $1500 can save a few extra months on a 30 year mortgage.

For a specific example, a 200,000 mortgage at 5% for 30 years, paying just $100 extra per month reduces the number of monthly payments by 62, or 5.17 years, and reduces the interest and total paid by $37,069.03.

Increasing it to $200 extra per month reduces the number of monthly payments by 104, or 8.67 years, and reduces the interest and total paid by $61,160.51.