How can I reduce my monthly mortgage payment and home expenses?

Answer 1

live on the street and roam the earth

Answer 2

This is hard to do.
List your utility bills and see if you can reduce them.
Not to discourage you but you probably won't be able to make a big difference. This is common sense stuff.
Turn off lights, shorter showers, lower thermostat, turn water heater down, don't use Air Cond except on brutal days etc. Also you might explore an amortization schedule on your mortgage, ask your mortgage holder

Answer 3

Think about how you are using your utilities. We've saved a lot of money this summer because we haven't turned on our air conditioner. We have some over-head fans that help make this possible (there are some that will even blow heat down in the winter). That may be a little extreme for you, but there are a lot of little things you can do to use your energy more efficiently (turning off the lights when you leave a room for example).

Answer 4

You could try and refinance, but that's likely going to be a signficant chunk of change to do that. Are you paying PMI on the loan? You could check and see if you're eligible to have that removed.

As for home expenses, you can put together a list of where all your money is going out of each paycheck, then see if there's anywhere you can cut back (eating out less, phone services, cable, etc).

Something I've found valuable is to change your withholding amounts on each check IF (and only if) you're getting a significant refund from the IRS each year. If you reduce the amount withheld from your check, you'll get the equivalent of your refund back with each check instead of one chunk at the end of the year...the IRS doesn't pay interest on the money they have that's yours!