Devising an effective way to teach interest rate determinants and help students understand various risk premiums is an essential part of any introductory finance course. Unfortunately, because these topics are commonly taught in conjunction with the introduction of bonds, students often become confused while trying to simultaneously learn new terminology and concepts related to bond pricing. In this paper, we describe a more student friendly approach to teaching interest rate determinants. We believe students gain a better understanding of risk premiums when related to loan types they are already somewhat familiar with. Specifically, this paper describes how to use a simple comparison of various mortgage rates to more clearly explain concepts such as default risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk. This approach focuses students' attention on the concepts at hand rather than confusing them with multiple high level applications at one time.