A: In these days of low interest rates, many homeowners have taken advantage of refinancing to save money on their mortgage, but there is another way to save money and reduce the number of years you make payments. It's called a bi-weekly mortgage.

Here's how it works: you take your normal mortgage payment and cut it in half. You pay one-half of your normal mortgage payment every other week. By the end of the year instead of making 12 payments you've made 13 full payments. You will be pleasantly surprised about how early you can pay off your house by making one extra mortgage payment a year.

On a $100,000 home at eight-percent interest you will save approximately $48,000 over the life of your loan and build equity in your home faster. You will also knock seven years off your 30-year loan as well. Paying it off in only 23 years.

Using the same $100,000 loan as an example, making bi-weekly payments would cost you about $50 more each month than making payments every 30 days. Not much of a sacrifice when you're talking about saving almost $50,000 and knocking seven years off your loan.

If you already have a mortgage you can convert it to a bi-weekly mortgage. You need to contact your lender and tell them what you're going to do and make sure that they can handle the paperwork. And if you are in the market for a new mortgage you might just want to apply for a bi-weekly mortgage.