Many people don’t think about their mortgage once they’ve been approved, other than to make the regularly scheduled monthly payment. However, proactively managing your mortgage can save you literally thousands of dollars over the life of your loan. Here are some ways to do so.

Pay a little extra on your mortgage each month. Even if you pay $50 or $100 it will help. The reason is that most of your payment goes towards interest in the early years of a mortgage. That extra payment will go towards your principle though, lessening the total amount of interest you’ll end up paying and saving you money.

Another option is to send in half of your payment every two weeks. Although dividing it up like this makes it seem as though you are paying the same amount, you’ll actually end up making a whole payment more. The way this works is that there are 52 week in a year, so you’ll end up sending in 26 half-payments, or 13 whole payments, which is one more than sending money every month.

While both of these options can help you spend less on your mortgage over its life check your terms first. Some mortgages have prepayment penalties so you’ll be charged for paying your mortgage off early. Make sure you don’t have prepayment penalties before making extra payments to avoid any unnecessary fees down the road.

Finally, you can always try to refinance if it makes sense. But, make sure it does make sense. Check the fees and closing costs you’ll have to pay when refinancing to make sure you won’t be losing money in the end.