6 ways to pay off your mortgage faster

A mortgage is expensive.

Buying a home is one of - if not the - biggest expenses a person will ever have, says Kalyn Brooke in her book, "31 Days of Radically Reducing Your Expenses."

Brooke, founder of lifestyle site Creative Savings Blog, was content with making the minimum payments for her mortgage, but soon realized how much it was affecting the rest of the budget.

"My wake-up call happened the first time I really looked at that end-of-year mortgage statement in the mail and realized how much interest I was paying on top of my loan," she writes. "I promised myself right then and there that I would do whatever steps necessary to pay my mortgage off as quickly as possible."

Currently, Brooke and her husband are working towards paying off the mortgage on their first home in New York along with making payments to their new second home in Florida.

Here are six tips Brooke shares to help whittle down your payment: