Comments on: Pros and Cons of Money Merge Accounts

By: Money Merge Accounts - Scam or Legitimate?

Money Merge Accounts - Scam or Legitimate? — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:13:27 +0000

[...] Pros and Cons of Money Merge Accounts. [...]

By: JoeTaxpayer

JoeTaxpayer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:19:17 +0000

Well, I prefer to think of it as “Jimmy was righter than he thought” esp considering the board we are on. Safe holiday to all.

By: JimmyDaGeek

JimmyDaGeek — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:23:08 +0000

Yes, =( you are right. I reran my calculations for other posts.

By: JoeTaxpayer

JoeTaxpayer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:16:51 +0000

Jimmy, you are more right than you know. At 6%, the $3500 turns into $20,000 over 30 years. Not just $4000 savings, but $16,500 in saved intest, plus the $3500 you didn’t throw away. $20,000, my friend…..

By: JimmyDaGeek

JimmyDaGeek — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:10:10 +0000

“Using the banks money” – We started out by taking out a loan called a mortgage, using the bank’s money. Now that it’s time to pay the loan back, we need to get the money from somewhere. Usually, it comes out of our paycheck. But MMA claims that if we use a HELOC, we are not using our money anymore, we are using the bank’s money. But, wait, we started all this by using the bank’s money to take out a mortgage and now we have to pay it back. So that means if we use the bank’s money by taking a loan out of the HELOC, we have to pay that back, too. So all we did was postpone having to pay the bank back by using the HELOC money to pay the mortgage. We still have to pay the HELOC back. Where is that money going to come from? Out of our paycheck. So why should we spend $3500 on MMA to play a money shell game with a HELOC?

“Interest cancellation” – MMA claims that by loading up the HELOC and running our paychecks through the HELOC, we reduce the balance so much that we save lots of money that way, and that alone is worth $3500. OK, so how much can we save? Well, let’s assume our mortgage rate is 6%. That means each month, we are charged 1/2% on our mortgage balance, the whole balance. But if we are using interest cancellation, the most that we can save is whatever our monthly salary is. So, if we bring home $5,000, the largest HELOC balance we can offset is $5,000. How much will that save? $5,000 times 1/2% is $25. That’s $25 per month or $300 per year. So MMA wants you to spend $3500 upfront to save $300 per year. Do you know how much interest you would save if you just put $3500 towards your 6% mortgage? OVER $4,000.

“Factorial math” – MMA claims no one except a computer can figure out the best possible way to pay all your bills and debts because of all the possible combinations. LIES. There is only one SIMPLE BEST way to pay off all your debts. You pay off the highest interest debt first and work your way down using a DEBT SNOWBALL. It only needs addition and subtraction.

By: Stephanie Halpin

Stephanie Halpin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:48:35 +0000

My husband and I have been utilizing the MMA software since February 2008 and will be mortgage free November 2013. Our original mortgage was $289,000. We are in a unique situation where we are debt free except for our mortgage, have an excess of money in our account each month after bills and continue to stick to our monthly budget.

If anything, it has allowed up to recognize the areas in our monthly budget where we were over-spending and have been able to tighten our monthly budget even more. For example, we are eating at home more vs eating out!

I would agree that this program is not for everyone but it made sense to us. We ran the various spreadsheets and needed the software support to stratiegically transfer the money to our mortgage in order to save the most. I will be a true believer if we are in fact mortgage free in November 2013!

My advise: do your research and be honest about your ability to stick to a monthly budget.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:15:42 +0000

I purchased the UF MMA in September. Bottom line: It’s not a scam but it does NOT pay your house off any faster. The HELOC shuffle does not net a single penny in increased savings or payoff.

The MMA takes every dollar of any money at months end and puts it against your note. If you have the discipline you can do this yourself easily.

I purchased the software due to the fact that I received a written guarantee of a 9.5 year payoff where as with my current extra 800/month in payments yielded a 14.5 year payoff.

What I later realized AFTER I purchased the program is that the rep took my monthly income and put it down as bi-weekly instead of 2x/month…. This added another month of income which I do not earn. Thus the extra 5 year payoff.

Do not buy these programs!! Get on a written budget and empty your checking acct each month against your note. Before doing this type of aggressive pay down I would have a fully funded EMERGENCY FUND of 6 months expenses!!!

By: Steve Orris

Steve Orris — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:18:34 +0000

Thank you for your opinion Joe. Your blog has a lot of great information on it and you are a fantastic resource for financial information. My point was simply to encourage people to seek out information on this topic from someone who had actually used the product.

By: JoeTaxpayer

JoeTaxpayer — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:47:38 +0000

Sorry for the double post.
Steve, are you agent number 868691?
I’d expect you to disclose that, so readers here can consider the source. I should have been tipped off by the analogy. No agent that I found yet can discuss MMA without comparing it to something completely unrelated. I like to compare MMA to getting robbed of $3500 at knifepoint, only there’s no knife, and you’re happy to give the money away, thinking you get something in return.

By: JoeTaxpayer

JoeTaxpayer — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:27:59 +0000

Why is that? Given the nature of the product (i.e. a scam) users are those already to be innumerate, and therefore incapable of understanding the product itself and victims of the scam.

Your logic is how Madoff got so many clients. Think about that. Almost by definition, the users are happy, either ignorant of their own situation, or agents trying to peddle this to the next mark. Look at the numbers, more than half the users sign up as agents.