Extra principle payments for quick pay down

[Jim Hartmann]

Hello all. We are in the process of purchasing another personal home and turning our current home in to a rental.  I have heard in the past about a strategy where you send in a separate monthly payment for principle only after you send in the scheduled payment. This process helps to save interest in the longer term of the loan by having less principle that will be accruing interest as time goes on. My question is, has anyone used this practice in the past? If so, how successful was it? How much extra did you pay towards the principle each month? I understand that you want to use particular wording to specify where this extra principle payment goes to. What particular wording and steps need to be taken to make sure that this extra principle payment is applied properly?