Ever wonder how your mortgage payment is applied?

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Ever wonder how your mortgage payment is applied? For each mortgage payment you make, the money is first used to pay the interest on your mortgage loan.
The remaining portion of your payment is then used to reduce the principal, which is the amount that you borrowed from the lender.
In the first years of the mortgage, most of the payment normally goes toward the interest costs. As the mortgage balance decreases over time, more of each payment goes towards paying off the principal.
To reduce your interest costs, some techniques are to increase your monthly payments, make lump sum payments, make accelerated payments (i.e. bi-weekly), or decrease your amortization period.