reducing term or mortgage
I came accross this on another message board:
"We've just discovered that if you change your mortgage repayments from monthly to fortnightly you could take about 4 years off your mortgage (exact difference will depend on your loan and term). We are both paid fortnightly and on enquiring we discovered this SECRET.... Your mortgage is accruing interest on a DAILY BASIS (something else we didn't know) so, if your money is just sitting there waiting to be claimed by your bank at the end of the month, change your payments to fortnightly! EBS dont have this facility but BOI, AAIB and NIB do."
Apparently this works weekly and daily also:
"It's hard to summarise, so here is an example working :
Suppose you borrow 100,000 on week 1.
By week 2 you owe 100,050, by week 3 you owe 100,105, by week 4 you owe 100,160.
Note that your interest amount goes up each time because you owe more and more money each week due to last weeks interest.
This is as normal.
Now, suppose you pay off 50 on week 2 - this brings your debt down to 100,000 again. This means on week 3 you owe 100,050 and week 4 you owe 100,105. You pay off 105 and are back down to 100,000 again.
The difference between the two scenarios is that in the fist one you accrued (owed) 160 of iterest, while in the second one you accrued 155. You saved 5 by paying earlier.
Obviously the example above is using totally imaginary figures, but it is given as an example.
Please note that this only works if your provider calculates interest weekly or fortnightly or even daily. If they only calculate monthly then there is absolutely no advantage to be gained."
sorry about the long post. I found this on rollercoaster.ie under money matters on their discussion board.