I recently refinanced my home in Plymouth and I was blown away by finding out something about my mortgage payment.
It turns out if you have more equity than 95% loan-to-value for your house, you don't have to escrow anything! Ok, I get it, some people that's no big deal, but here's what that means:
Your escrow is basically your hazard insurance and your property taxes cut into monthly payments and put into an account that is automatically paid out when needed. If you don't escrow, you can pay both on your own.
I'm going to pay all of it on my credit card. easy for the hazard insurance and, for the property taxes, it costs a flat $3.95 with a Visa and 2.29% of the total for Mastercard. Depending on your credit card (and your property taxes) that could mean a ton of points for as low as $3.95 :)