Loan Repayment Planner
See how extra monthly payments shorten a loan's payoff time and cut down total interest paid.
How extra payments actually save money
Extra payments reduce the balance that future interest gets calculated on. Because loan payments are front-loaded with interest, an extra principal payment made early in the term saves more total interest than the same extra amount paid later.
A common mix-up
Paying biweekly instead of monthly isn't a separate trick — 26 half-payments a year works out to one extra full payment annually, which is just a specific, automatic version of the extra-payment strategy this tool models directly.