Plenty of financial wizards and real estate gurus offer systems to help homeowners pay off their mortgages early – but you should be skeptical of any strategies that involve paying someone to set up the scheme. There are even bimonthly payment arrangements that you can create with the help of your mortgage company, for example, for a nominal fee – but doesn’t the idea of paying a fee defeat the whole purpose of trying to save money?

A better way to shortcut your interest payments and pay down principal in a quick manner is to do just exercise a little discipline, rely on the calendar and some basic logic, and set up your own twice-a-month payment plan. Don’t pay twice as much, however, because the idea is to pay the same amount you normally do – while sending in your monthly payment in two equal installments.

Here’s how it works:

By paying half of your payment every two weeks, you wind up paying a full extra month’s worth of mortgage payments each year. The result is a function of mathematics and how our 52-week, 12-month calendar operates. Another way to think about how this system works is to consider that any interest rate payment plan involves charging you interest for each day that you borrow the money. Pay off the debt early and you no longer owe interest. If you pay an extra month’s worth per year on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage loan, you’ll save a month a year, 12 months in 12 years, and about two and a half years over the life of the loan. Consider, for example, a loan with a monthly payment of $1,200. Over a period of 30 years your savings will add up to approximately $1,200 times 30 – or more than $35,000. Of course it will cost you an extra postage stamp per month, but you can eliminate that expense and hassle by just setting up an online payment account and paying your lender via the Internet.

As with any payment arrangement, check with your lender or study the fine print of your mortgage to make sure that paying this way is permissible. But chances are your lender will be more than happy to get 50 percent of your monthly payment two weeks ahead of time.