MoneyWise and Personal Musings

Success From Home, from the publisher of Success Magazine, has featured United First Financial™, and it’s Money Merge Account® program as its cover story in the February issue, available now.

This highlights the unquestioned credibility of UFirst™. Folks will see, on national newsstands, the outstanding opportunity.

Just think, pay off your debt quickly, and help others to do the same.  Everyone benefits.

“I think people have to learn how to earn, save, invest and then be philanthropic.  What the Money Merge Account® does is it gives people insight into what their habits are.  As a society, we’ve become used to consumerism and spending — maybe even overspending.  The Money Merge Account helps you realized when you’re spending too much.  For most of us – myself included – it’s a wake-up call.”  – Mark Victor Hansen.

“What we’re trying to do is conquer the world of debt – because debt is causing the paralysis of the world.  United First Financial’s Money Merge Account software is going to change the world because if we could have done it, we would have done it.  But we haven’t yet – until now.  Even with as much cash flow as I have, and I have much more than most, I still have debt.  The software helps me see that, instead of [paying] 30 years on this piece of property, I’m on schedule to pay this off in 12.2 year and potentially save $639,000.  I did not realize that until I used the Money Merge Account program.”  – Mark Victor Hansen

If you’re interested in joining the mission to help others get debt free and build wealth, visit our website: And the rest is up to you.

Oh My God!  I am a United First Financial MMA client and I recently made a change.  I was paying $130 a month to our Orthodontist for my daughters braces.  The last check was returned to me because that debt was paid off.  When I originally set up the “EXPENSE” as $130 a month I was on version 3 and I could not put in an ending date.  So what I did now is add next month as the ending date for this expense.  I could have deleted the expense since I no longer have it but I thought I’d use the ending date feature.

Well what happened is that my mortgage payoff date moved forward 3.5 years!  Three and a half years with just a $130 increase in cash flow!!!  Wow!! I’m so excited.  It’s pretty amazing the ability of the MMA to calculate that for me and illuminate my money sense.  I’m on the way to becoming moneywise!!

The many mortgage brokers that call me all tell me the same thing, with interest rates as low as they are now and by the way they are only going to go up, isn’t it time for you to refinance and lock in that new low rate?

What they don’t tell you is that more than half of the refinance candidates would be better off financially not refinancing.  The brokers get paid on every refi so asking them if it is beneficial to you to refinance is not the best advice.  The mortgage professionals typically point out the low interest rate and the lower monthly payment but nothing else.  They don’t tell you that if you are refinancing a twenty-seven year mortgage that you are increasing your payments by three years!!  Also, when the broker is talking they often say that the refinance will be no out of pocket expense to you and you are thinking cool, no cost.  But that is misleading.  The costs are often rolled into the mortgage balance.

Most folks when looking at whether they should refinance or not look at only the interest rate and the lower monthly payment.  And most often the decision is made on just the monthly payment reduction.  Even the refinance calculators do not show you the total costs of a refinance.  All they give you is the monthly payment savings amount and then divide that by the cost of the refi and then in summary give you the number of months to recoup the initial cost.  That always is some number of months so that calculation always shows you that it is beneficial to refinance (assuming the new monthly payment is lower than the original payment).

They conveniently forget to show you that now your mortgage term is now longer and so your overall cost over the life of your loan is higher.  But if you look at the longer duration of the mortgage and take the mortgage payment and times it by the increased number of payments you get a rather large number.  But since you have a monthly payment savings you divide that large number by the monthly savings to get a number of months it will take to break even.  So it would make sense to refinance to a lower interest rate loan if you plan on keeping your loan longer than the break even point.

If you are familiar with United First Financial MMA program there is one other calculation that can be done to insure that it would be beneficial to refinance or not.  Your agent can run the new numbers through the Analysis software.  The Analysis takes into account the lower interest rate, the longer mortgage duration, and the increased cash flow created by the monthly savings rate.  Then and only then can you be sure the refinance would be beneficial.

Don’t be taken by a lower monthly payment.  Always ask for the TOTAL COSTS.