Additional mortgage payments to principle and saving interest

[Anonymous]

I have found a few sites that will let you put in how much you plan to pay extra each month and it will tell you how much interest you will save but my extra payment varies each month.

I recently got a check(s) from Citi in which I could write it out to myself and deposit it into my bank. The idea was to then use that money to pay an additional principle only payment to my mortgage. The check is 0% APR for 12 months and the fee is five dollars or 3%. Since they started me with my lowest credit limit of $1500 the check would only be for $1000 so the fee would be $30. Now I need to figure out if I would save more than $30 in interest by paying $1000 now to princple to my mortgage. I know $60,750 with an interest rate of 5% currently. I got the mortgage in December 2014 and it is an adjustable rate that could change in five years. Interest is accured each day.

I was wondering if anyone has created a spreadsheet in which I can insert extra payments and find out how much interest that would save me over the life of the loan. Or a website that does that. All the sites I've found so far want to know how much you plan to pay extra each month and don't allow you to edit 500 extra in April 600 in May 2000 in August and etc.

I've created a spreadsheet where I can insert my payment, it calculates the interest due, The amount applied to principle and the new principal balance. However my spreadsheet skills are lacking but I am trying to learn and I can't figure out how to write the formula or get it to tell me how much paying extra will save me in interest.

Anyone has any advice, help, Links them please let me know and I greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

[iv]

For extra payment calculations, this spreadsheet is fairly useful: bit.ly/1aMeVHn (full link won't post for some reason - copy/paste bit.ly link to browser...)

As for pre-paying part of the mortgage balance with cash advance/balance transfer checks... don't.  Just don't.

Not only would the less-than $20 nominal "savings" in interest be quickly wiped out if you carried a balance beyond the 0% period, remember that the 5% mortgage interest is (generally) tax-deductible, making the effective rate lower than 5% (by how much depends on your income/tax situation).  Not to mention the score impact of having 66% utilization on the Citi card...

If you were planning on paying that $1000 + $30 off in 12 equal payments to Citi (about $86/month), just pay that $86/month directly to the mortgage.  Your mortgage balance at the end of those 12 months will be within $3 of the cash advance option, you won't have dealt with the risks and score penalties of the other option, and your tax deduction will be (very slightly) better.

[iv]

For extra payment calculations, this spreadsheet is fairly useful: http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/home-mortgage-calculator.html

As for pre-paying part of the mortgage balance with cash advance/balance transfer checks... don't.  Just don't.

Not only would the less-than $20 nominal "savings" in interest be quickly wiped out if you carried a balance beyond the 0% period, remember that the 5% mortgage interest is (generally) tax-deductible, making the effective rate lower than 5% (by how much depends on your income/tax situation).  Not to mention the score impact of having 66% utilization on the Citi card...

If you were planning on paying that $1000 + $30 off in 12 equal payments to Citi (about $86/month), just pay that $86/month directly to the mortgage.  Your mortgage balance at the end of those 12 months will be within $3 of the cash advance option, you won't have dealt with the risks and score penalties of the other option, and your tax deduction will be (very slightly) better.

[frugalQ]

i agree with iv...don't use a credit card to pay your mortgage.  just pay extra on the mortgage each month.

[StartingOver10]

OP, you can also go to bankrate.com and use the mortgage calculators to see the effect of monthly extra principal payments OR payments made one time OR payments made annually. It is a very easy to use calculator.

PS, I agree with the others, don't borrow money from a cc to put against your mortgage. You can take very small amounts and use it toward additional principal payments and save tons of interest. You would be surprised. Play around with any mortgage calculator and you will see that even one extra payment per year will save you approx 7 years of payments and a ton of interest.