5 simple ideas to pay off your home loan sooner

1. Direct salary crediting¹.

This is a clever way to pay your loan off sooner. All you need is a credit card, like the Aussie MasterCard®. Then follow these three steps:

• Talk to us about having all or part of your salary credited directly into your Aussie Home Loan account. Every day this money stays in your home loan account it reduces your outstanding balance and saves you interest.
• Now use your Aussie MasterCard or another card to pay your bills, living and entertainment expenses.
• When your credit card bill is due, you can redraw, or Third Party Direct Debit the amount to pay the bill, leaving any extra from your salary in your home loan account to reduce interest even more. Over time, the cumulative effect of reducing your loan balance and saving interest gains momentum, so a few dollars saved in the first month can become hundreds, and then thousands in the years to come.

2. Repay fortnightly instead of monthly².

Your fortnightly repayment is half your monthly repayment, so 26 fortnightly repayments add up to the equivalent of 13 monthly repayments. That’s one extra monthly repayment every year. Over the years, these extra repayments can snowball into thousands of dollars saved and years off your loan.

3. Repay more than your minimum contractual repayment.

Could you add a few more dollars a week to your home loan repayment? Even a small amount can make a big difference over time. If you think you can afford more than your minimum contractual repayment, visit Aussie Online or call our customer service team, and start paying off your home loan sooner.

4. Make additional repayments when you can afford it.

With a variable rate loan, you’re free to make additional repayments whenever you want. Say you get a tax refund or a Christmas bonus, you can pay it into your home loan to reduce the outstanding balance and save. You’re then free to redraw these extra repayments if you need to³. It’s like putting money in the bank, except you’ll probably save more interest than you’d ever earn.

5. Leave your repayment unchanged when interest rates fall.

At Aussie, we automatically reduce your minimum repayment on variable rate loans in line with any interest rate reduction, unless you’ve already nominated a higher repayment amount. But you can ask us to leave your repayment unchanged, so the fall in rates helps reduce your loan term, instead of your repayment.