This month when our mortgage payment was taken out of our bank account, it was about $180 less than normal. Concerned, we talked to the bank and found it went down when our property taxes were reassessed. Sweet!

Since we’d been planning on adjusting our mortgage payments anyway, we decided to have the payment amount bumped back up to where it had been for the past year and switch to bi-weekly payments instead of monthly payments.
We bumped up to the old payment amount, because we’ve been paying that much for a year with no problems, so why not keep paying a comfortable amount that’s suddenly an overpayment? We went bi-weekly because then it makes 13 full payments per year instead of 12. Both of these things will reduce the length of the mortgage.

What I was not prepared for was how much they affected the length of the mortgage.
I know about compound interest and what happens over a long number of years. I get it, I do. But holy crap! What a real-life example to kick us in the butt!

Our mortgage was for 40 years. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Bad us.) We’ve been paying for 1 year now. We went in considering the first year to be a wash in regard to paying it down, due to other expenses of moving and settling in to our first home.
Now, with only 1 year of payments (which really didn’t touch the principle) and two minor adjustments, our projected mortgage time is 23 and a half years. Twenty-three.

That means we cut 16 years off our mortgage! With tiny changes that don’t really affect the amount of money leaving our pockets now.
Not to mention any changes we make in the future, like when we get raises or whatever.

Well, except for in October. In October, we get to pay a full payment on the 1st, then an interest-only payment ($43) on the 2nd, then our first bi-weekly payment on the 16th and then again on the 30th. Yikes! Might have to pull from the LoC to cover all that, but we’ll see.
After October, it’ll be business as usual.

I don’t know about you, but keeping 16 years worth of interest in our pockets instead of in the bank’s makes me feel pretty damn good! ^_^