Comments on: United First Financial Money Merge Accounts: Scam or Legit?

By: Sandy

Sandy — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:36:22 +0000

Wow, thank you. I tried emailing the company and got no response, so I filed a report with the BBB. I didn’t want to do that, but it was my last resort, especially after realizing that my agent forged his wife’s signature on the paperwork. I know a lot of people have different opinions on the program, but for me, I watched my bank account get dangerously low. The program would have had me overdrawing on my checking account and bouncing all my bills. I really do appreciate your help!

By: JimmyDaGeek

JimmyDaGeek — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:59:32 +0000

Hi Brian,

What happened to that $8500 loan? Did MMA tell you to write a check from the HELOC to pay it off? What is its interest rate and monthly payment?

One of the tricks that MMA uses is to pay off any outstanding debt you have using the HELOC and “steal” that monthly payment to pay off your mortgage. You magically have extra money to pay down your mortgage while the HELOC balance isn’t paid off as fast as it ought to be.

By: calvin

calvin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:04:37 +0000

“I agree a DIY approach will probably save money but I would have to be really good with math.”

You were told this, but it isn’t true. When your HELOC rate is lower than your mortgage rate, the optimal amount is “as much as possible”, though as Joe correctly pointed out, the bigger the number, the bigger the risk. When it is more than your mortgage rate, it’s equal to your monthly income the first month, and your discretionary income after that. That’s it. The funny thing is the MMA software doesn’t ever seem to use the optimal amounts.

If Joe is right in estimating your savings at $300/yr, that means you have a minimum of 12 years until you’ve paid for the software with your savings, and that ignores the interest on the additional $3500, which you carry until the mortgage is paid off….probably adding another few years to your break even date. 12 years for principal, plus another few for added interest, for many users, the break even never happens because you would pay off the house before breaking even with what you could have done easily on your own.

As Joe said, you like it, so be happy with what you don’t know. Just please don’t recommend putting others into the same system when just a minimal amount of information will give them a free and better alternative. Handing over your finances to a black box is not a good thing.

calvin

By: Joetaxpayer

Joetaxpayer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:31:11 +0000

Fair enough, not to mention you guys got the girls.

All I’d suggest to you now is that if you have an employer who offers any match on your 401(k), take it, don’t miss a dime of match to prepay a mortgage. And don’t pay a dime of high interest credit card debt to pay the mortgage. I wish you well, I hope your knees still work.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:19:45 +0000

So you were one of those math guys in high school. I was the football player. You math guys seemed a little geeky then but I truly appreciate the abilites you have now. When I went through the MMA figures I thought that if MMA cut over four months off my repayment time compared to what I could do myself I would save money. My monthly mortgage is just less than $900. The MMA program is cutting off at least 24 months and I’m sure it’s more than that compared with what would happen if I did my own pay down. I know that’s a simple way for a simple football player to look at it, but leveraging the banks money through a heloc will more than help me recoop the $3,500 start up fee.

By: Joetaxpayer

Joetaxpayer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:23:21 +0000

Be happy and avoid anti-MMA posts. You bought the program, and are happy with it.

My mission is to talk to people before the sale. My message is simple, “at the end of each month, send your extra money to the mortgage, marked as principal.” repeat.
It’s far more than 95%, I’m the guy who aced the Math SATs in high school. I didn’t play football, but got an A in gym as I tutored the players to keep their grades high enough to keep playing.
But – there’s no math to do this, well, maybe just adding that bit to the check, but anyone can add with a calculator, right? MMA agents are trained to convince you that the math is beyond you. My secret? There is no math.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:02:35 +0000

Hi Joe,
I do use the Heloc as a checking account now. I don’t know all the math behind it but I assume that there is a tipping point as to how much to use out of a heloc to apply towards mortgage. If I take out too much I end up paying too much towards interest on the heloc. If I don’t take enough on the heloc I don’t maximize my repayment time. Again, I don’t know the math on that one. I do realize the risk of using a heloc and have other assets to cover if need arises. I agree a DIY approach will probably save money but I would have to be really good with math. I’m not. What is really nice with the MMA is that I’m online about 5 minutes per week. I have a sound plan for getting out of debt quickly. I might have spent $3,500 but my total interest savings will be between $25,000 and $35,000 over the life of my mortgage. (I did a best case and worse case (hopefully) scenario. What I got for the money was a solid plan that changes in real time with my financial situation. It’s easy, it’s accurate, the service from the company after the sale has been terrific and for the 95% of us who aren’t as good with the math as you are, and I say that sincerely, it gets us out of debt quickly. I really like using the program. It’s motivational and it has done exactly what my agent told me it would do.

By: Joetaxpayer

Joetaxpayer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:28:52 +0000

Ok. At a rate of 2.5% on the HELOC, the shuffle can save you some money, I get that. On a 6% mortgage, the 3.5% savings is nearly $300/yr after taxes, good. But –
(a) you could do this on your own, and work from a HELOC instead of maintaining a checking balance.
(b) you could choose your own comfort level, why not use $30,000 HELOC draw? It seems that when the HELOC rate is below the mortgage rate, the MMA software doesn’t know what to do.
(c) my agreement that HELOC use helps you a bit notwithstanding, you realize there’s risk associated with that type of account, it’s a lien on your home. $50K in CC debt, no problem, they can try to collect. $5K on HELOC, you can get foreclosed on.
(d) don’t confuse “daily balance” accounting with borrowing interest free. I read an MMA endorsement, guy borrows $20K on June 29th, and is amazed how the interest was pennies, based on a June 30th statement date. HELOC is calculated on daily balance, so you pay the full rate on money you owe each day. The shuffle lets you “earn” 2.5% on your cash flow instead of the 0% you’d get in checking.

All well and good, but all the savings don’t add to enough to fund the MMA fee of $3500. I’ve done the math many times and proven MMA cannot beat DIY. Ever.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:12:22 +0000

Hi guys,
Here is what happened my first month. The program told me to pay off $10 K out of my heloc to my mortgage principle. Then it instructed me to put all my income into the heloc as a principle payment. That suppressed my average daily balance significantly and with a heloc its the average daily balance which dictates my interest payment. My actual figures are at home so I’m doing this from memory. My initial average daily balance for the heloc was about $6,000, the interest rate was 2.5% and the first monthly payment was $11.22. So, I borrowed $10 K on my heloc, paid interest on only $6K, and got to use $4k basically interest free. My $75 per month positive cash flow continues to drive down my average daily balance. When my ADB gets to a certain tipping point the program instructs me hit up my heloc again and pay off principle on my mortgage. By doing this again and again the mortgage/debt payback is accelerated. I will admit to not being a financial wizard, but the concept makes sense to me and it is certainly working for me. I can see it in my bank statements. The mortgage principle is down 10K and all the front loaded interest has gone with it.

By: Joetaxpayer

Joetaxpayer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:46:44 +0000

Brian,
You wrote “Using MMA I paid off that much ($10K?) in my first two months.”
Look at it from a ‘balance sheet’ perspective. In the first second you purchased this, your balance sheet dropped by $3500. The fact that it saved you future interest is an obfuscation purposely shown by agents to divert you from that fact. It is easily canceled by the future interest on the $3500 owed in the HELOC.
With no numbers, I’ll assume 6% HELOC. It will take 53 months to pay off the $3500 with your extra $75/mo. 4 years of your money just to get back to break even.
Besides my civility, I hope you notice I do my best to stick to numbers.
Add up all your debt right now, the last statements for Mortgage, HELOC, CC. How much less is it than the day before you bought MMA (and when was that?)
Joe

By: calvin

calvin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:34:12 +0000

Brian,

The math is very straightforward. The MMA cannot be doing what you are saying it’s doing. You either have more discretionary income than you think, or you are looking at the results incorrectly. I am more than happy to show you where your discrepency is, but it would mean putting some numbers out there (income, expenses, etc). If you only have $75 extra a month, the most the MMA can send to your mortgage is $75 a month plus a few dollars in interest, while the extra $3500 in debt generates and extra $10-$20 in interest alone, not to mention the extra principal owed.

I’m not trying to call you out or call you a liar, I’m just saying the math is saying your numbers can’t be right. Something is different from what you think it is. The most common one is bi-weekly income. If you are paid every two weeks, and you have $75 left over each month *that you get two paychecks*, then you have substantially more income since you have two paychecks unaccounted for in your $75/month. Just one thing it could be. We have run literally hundreds of simulations of this process. We know exactly what it’s doing. It never wins with the $3500 anchor, and rarely wins without it.

Calvin

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:04:43 +0000

Hi Joe,
Thank you for your very civil reponse. I know you feel strongly about what you believe so I appreciate your polite rejoinder. I think I understand your plan but if I sent the $3,500 towards mortgage principle and then the $75 per month to mortgage principle as you suggest, that would give me $4,400 towards principle the first year and then roughly $1,000 per year towards paying off my principle. That would take me six years to pay off $10,000 of principle. Using MMA I paid off that much in my first two months. If my financial situation stays the same that means I will only be paying $11 per month for 102 months, a total of $1,122 in Heloc interest to be rid of my whole debt. The mortgage interest cancelled by that $1,122 is a little more than $25,000. Your suggestion of early pay off is good but the MMA has accelerated my payoff in a way that is far more helpful to my financial long term health. Plus if I invest my mortgage payment at 1% after my mortgage is paid off I will have accumulated about $40,000 plus dollars between the time of my early pay off and what would have been my initial pay off date. I would have lost the opportunity to accumulate that money if not for the MMA.

By: Joetaxpayer

Joetaxpayer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:31:04 +0000

Well, Brian, you don’t have to make a full month’s payment, just a bit of extra principal, the $75 would have done nicely.
I’m happy that you’re so happy.
I just wish you were happy and $3500 richer by ‘not’ borrowing that $3500 in the first place. You could have used the HELOC to pay off the other higher interest debt and send the $75 to the HELOC until it was paid, then send it to the mortgage each month, but I know, that’s too easy.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:16:47 +0000

Hi guys,
I’m actually doing the MMA. I only have about $75 left at the end of each month so I couldn’t save enough each year to make an extra payment. I put the $3,500 for the program on my Heloc to get started. So far I’ve paid off $13,000 of principle on my mortgage and my Heloc Interest costs are only about $11 per month. I can afford that expense. My 14 year mortgage, $8,500 of other loans and the cost of the program will be paid off in 8.5 years. I can see the progress on my bank statements. The MMA works.

By: NJBlue82

NJBlue82 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:33:13 +0000

Calvin,

I input data a few times and the MMA results are valid for monthly and semi-monthly (and about what one could do if one sent the discretionary money to their mortgage company).

It’s when an agent inputs bi-weekly or weekly pay periods that things get a little screwy: MMA’s analysis screens default a reduction in the expenses and if I recall, does so even if the agent answers the “do you want the extra paychecks to go toward debt elimination?” box No.

Clearly, a family’s monthly expenses are what they are, regardless of how frequently their income arrives. In my opinion – and I have not run an analysis since I was soundly defeatedly in our July arguments – MMA’s performance is overstated for bi-weekly and weekly pay cycle families. Fortuitous glitch (for UFF) or just a glitch? Not sure about that one. Take care,

NJB