so I got a letter from M&T (with whom I have my mortgage) offering me their Bisaver program.
by paying bi-weeky for what would work out to 13 monthly payments per year I can save $40k in interest and pay it off about 7 years earlier. The obvious downsides are that they want me to pay a one time $400 fee plus $1 per payment.
my take on this is that it’s some 3rd party company working with M&T and taking a cut. I honestly don’t see what they are offering me that is anything special.
Why can’t I just send in my payments they way they are offering and get the same benefits for free???
I deal with this on a daily basis. there is no benefit to the program except it ‘forces’ you to make extra principle payments. Twice a year there will be an extra half payment, which will go directly towards principle. but thats only if you pay every other week, not twice a month: 24 payments vs 26 payments.
the figure is right with saving 7 years on a 30 year mortgage, but you can do it your self for free.
It is a third party company that does take a cut. Please do not send half payments on your own, M&T’s computer proably wont be able to figure it out, which will make a mess of your account. I hate it when people think they need to do it for months then decide to call and see why they are behind. That is usually a long phone call…
Just use an amortization calculator and figure how much xp you need to send every month to pay your loan off in your scheduled time frame. Also, if you send XP every month and your payment changes because of escrow and you end up sending a short payment you can go back and re-apply the xp to go towards that short payment so you dont get a late charge, you cant do that if you dont have any xp to use.
Its mainly for people who cant budget, get paid every other week, and dont understand mortagages.
you can do it yourself, some lenders may require you to specify on the extra payment that it is to go towards principal or they will just add it to your account as a “credit”. easy enough to do though.
its more of a convience factor. its auto deducted from your account the same time you get paid so less hassle i guess.
Im enrolled in it and i like it less hassle for me at least.
A DSI loan will matter even if partial payments are applied to “reset” the interest counter on his loan in between payments. HOWEVER, if this third party is doing that, then there is no benefit to the program either way you flip the coin. That piece of information is essential to properly answer the question.
paying more to save more is obvious… the only reason I entertain the thought for a moment is because interesting things happen when you pay twice during a month for the same total. dezod makes good point that it would need to be a DSI for me to profit from this.
Indeed. Otherwise, simply chop your payment by 12 and make the extra payment yourself in a fraction of a payment over 12 months. It’s 6 of one, half dozen of another, if you do not have a DSI.