Cash Flow Management – Mortgage

Anyone who has spent any time at all reading this blog knows that Paul is a lot better at this stuff than I am.  Not only does he have a comfortable lead on me, but he spends more time and effort managing his personal finances.  However, that just gives me more room to grow!  This is the latest trick I’ve discovered to help manage cash flow:

I recently changed my direct deposit so that I no longer have to worry about my mortgage payment.  I’m sick of watching the balance fluctuate that much in a month!  When I was signing up for automatic payments on Chase’s website, I saw something about a 15 day grace period.  Curious, I checked my actual statement and found the following clause:

Has this been going on the whole time?  I’ve been carefully paying my mortgage payment a day or two before the due date for the past 5 years out of fears about late fees and I could have used this grace period to smooth out cash flow!  Sometimes you get to the end of the month and your paycheck’s not coming for another week and here’s this giant bill waiting for you, I had no idea I could have delayed two weeks!

At first I was thinking “all right, I can take advantage of this float time and pocket a little bit of interest,” but it really only works for a single two week period, after that it’s a wash.

I can no longer take advantage of this since I’ve taken the mortgage money and payment completely out of sight, but for anyone out there with cash flow issues for whom the monthly mortgage payment can occasionally be scary, be sure to check out the payment terms–you may have more leeway than you think.