Five ways to pay an extra $100 off your home loan every week

Putting even a small amount extra each week towards your mortgage can really help slash the balance and pay off the debt sooner.

Adding $500 to your monthly repayments on a $300,000 loan can save you $37,303 in interest over the life of the loan, and mean you pay off your loan six years and five months’ earlier, according to Canstar’s extra repayments calculator.

This assumes an interest rate of 3.7 per cent on a 25-year loan and that the extra repayments start five years into the loan.

Here are five easy steps you can take to start adding that extra hundred bucks to your loan straight away.

1. Grow your own food

Elle Meager, founder of the garden blog Outdoor Happens, saves $100 every week by growing her own food and raising chooks.

“I plant vegetables we eat from seed,” she says. “A packet of seeds costs $3 and contains between 10 and 100 seeds. It doesn’t take long to save $100 when you consider a head of lettuce costs $3 and a kilo of tomatoes costs $7.50.”

Meager has eight chickens that she raised from week-old chicks, which cost $6 each. “They lay between six and eight eggs every day. A dozen free-range eggs cost around $8 and our family of four eat two dozen eggs a week. Chickens don’t take much to look after and they’re a great way to recycle your kitchen scraps.”

2. Get yourself a side hustle

Kylie Travers runs The Thrifty Issue, a website dedicated to helping Australians save money. Frugality queen Travers saves more than $100 a week by creating side incomes like buying goods online to resell, doing online surveys and renting out her garage

“I can make more than $10,000 a month reselling, about $5000 a year from doing surveys and $50 a week by renting out the garage,” she says.

Three sites she recommends for paid surveys include Swagbucks, Octopus and Prize Rebel.

Online cashback websites, like Cashrewards and ShopBack, are also useful for getting cash back when you shop at places like New Balance, Repco and Sony.

Travers says reviewing her expenses each year also saves her almost $5000 annually. For instance, she never automatically renews insurance policies and instead gets new quotes every time the policy nears its end. She also reviews subscriptions each year and cancels any she and her family no longer use.

3. Look for bargains when you shop

There are lots of opportunities to buy cheaper groceries, says Grant Millar from Inspired Financial Planners. But even before you go looking for bargains, plan your meals to avoid wasting food. “Write a weekly meal plan to avoid unnecessary spending,” he says.

Shopping at cheaper supermarkets such as Aldi can also help slash your food bill. Look for specials and bulk buy to save.

Millar says it’s also important to know what you spend to be able to save. He recommends using the Moneysmart website to work out how much you spend and where you can make some savings.

4. Cut your utilities bills

You’re probably paying too much if you haven’t done a price check on your power and telco bills recently.

“Instead of locking yourself into a contract, go on a month-to-month plan and switch between providers when they offer a better price on promotional deals,” Millar says.

“Also work out how much data you actually need and only pay for that. Switch off automatic top-ups so you don’t pay an extra $10 per gigabyte you use.”

“You don’t need to go directly to the big name providers like Optus, Telstra or Vodafone,” he adds. “Resellers of their networks often charge far less. Also be wary of billing frequency. Companies that bill on a 28-day cycle charge you for an extra month each year.”

Resellers worth checking out include Vaya and CatchConnect for Optus, Boost and Aldi Mobile for Telstra and Kogan Mobile for Vodafone. Millar suggests using Spending Hacker to find good broadband deals.

Millar recommends comparing electricity providers by checking usage rates and supply charges. “Any discount is irrelevant because power companies can increase the base price before applying any discount. You need to figure out who offers the lowest actual price.”

5. Shop for cheap fuel

Fuel prices in capital cities follow a cycle and you can save a small fortune if you buy your fuel at the bottom of the cycle. The length of the cycle varies but lasts about a month in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and about a week in Adelaide and Perth. Prices in Canberra, Hobart, and Darwin generally don’t follow a cycle like the other capitals.

Check the ACCC’s petrol price cycle site to find out where the cycle is in your city. Other apps like MotorMouth and PetrolSpy are also worth checking to find the cheapest fuel near you.

As this article shows, there are plenty of ways to save at least $100 a week to add to your home loan and eventually achieve financial freedom. All it takes is a little effort and some research and you could be paying off your mortgage years earlier.