The simple answer is yes.  I don’t recommend doing this until all other debts are paid off because the rates on other loans, credit accounts, etc, are likely much higher than the interest rate on your mortgage.  However, once you have those paid off, any little bit extra you can pay towards your mortgage will save you a ton of money in the long run.  Since mortgages are front loaded in interest, the first third of your mortgage payments are almost all principal so you barely pay down the balance.  The bank doesn’t want you to know, but you can save a ton of money over the long run without spending a ton of extra money.

Lets take a look at my mortgage.  I ended up financing $125,600 after closing costs, everything said and done.  I locked in a fixed 30 year mortgage at 4.875%, this rate will be unheard of shortly.  I locked on almost to the day for this rate.

If I pay only the minimum on my mortgage, the payment is $665 per month.  This does not include taxes and insurance.  It will take me the full 30 year term to pay this off entirely and I will have paid over $113,600 on interest only.  Total payments would be about $239,200 over the life of the loan, or about twice what I paid for the house.

If I paid only an extra $50 per month on top of the minimum payment, I would have only paid $95,000 in interest and I would have paid the full loan off in 26 years instead of 30.

If I paid an extra $100 per month on top of the minimum payment, I would have only paid $81,900 in interest and I would have paid the full loan off in 23 years instead of 30.

If I paid an extra $200 per month on top of the minimum payment, I would have only paid $64,000 in interest and I would have paid the full loan off in 18 years instead of 30.

I don’t know about you, but saving 12 years of payments and $49,600 on interest payments sounds pretty good to me.

Check out the calculator here to input your data and see how much interest you are paying and how long it will take you to pay off your home loan.