Idea Man

I always thought that I would pay off my mortgage a lot quicker if I could chip away at it with the ease of using my credit card. This idea is not for those who have excessive credit card debt, I think this would be best served for those folks, like me, that live off their credit card, pay it off every month, but still find themselves buying some extra stuff on a whim. What if, when I make a purchase on my credit card and the item costs $5.00 I could tell the vendor to charge me $7.00 instead and at the end of the month they could send the $2.00 (or whatever had accumulated up) to my mortgage company towards the principal? As the monthly cycle goes on, I tend to have an idea of whether or not the upcoming credit card statement is going to be big. If I got in the habit of adding some extra money to my charges at the beginning of the month I would be less likely to buy some of the extra stuff on a whim later on in the monthly cycle. I usually pay all my bills at once when I get paid and by the time I go to write a check for my mortgage I have made a pretty big cut into my checking account with the other bills, one big one being the credit card. Maybe some of you out there think it is sad that I have to trick myself into being responsible with money but hey, there is a reason why credit cards are so convenient! I wonder if this would be a value add for the credit card company? They already hate people like me that pay off their monthly bills. The only benefit I can see for the credit card companies is that it is a service that might attrack customers. I think one point that would have to be ironed out is what percentage the store gets charged for the credit card transaction.