Pull up your mortgage statement from the first year you owned the house and look at where the payment actually went. On a typical 30-year loan, the early payments are mostly interest. Principal barely moves. People see that split and assume the bank front-loaded the interest on purpose, like the schedule was arranged to trap you.
The feeling is fair, but the math is plain. Interest each month is charged on the balance you still owe. In year one you owe the most you'll ever owe, so the interest charge is the biggest it will ever be, and whatever's left of your fixed payment goes to principal. As the balance falls, the interest charge falls with it, and more of that same payment lands on principal. That's all amortization is. A fixed payment meeting a shrinking balance.
Understanding the math points straight at the strategy. If interest is charged on the balance, then the balance is the target. An extra dollar of principal in year two kills more future interest than the same dollar in year twenty-two, because it stops working against you for that much longer. This is why extra principal payments early in a loan punch so far above their size.
It's also the entire reason chunking exists. Instead of drips of extra principal, you move a lump onto a line of credit and wipe out a slab of mortgage balance at once, then let your monthly cash flow bury the chunk on the line. The balance drops today, and every payment after that meets a smaller balance. The full mechanics are laid out on the How It Works page.
None of this means your mortgage is evil or your lender cheated you. A fixed-rate mortgage is a fine tool, and for plenty of people the right answer is to keep it exactly as is. The point is narrower. The interest bill follows the balance, so anything that pulls the balance down early changes the whole schedule. Whether the line-of-credit version fits your situation depends on your actual cash flow, and the wider picture of that lives at Oregon Cash Flow Pro.