I am a homeowner who has been on this program for about 6 months and I just wanted to share my experience in case it may help anyone to make a final decision.
My husband and I both work full time, have 2 kids, mortgage pmt of $1100 per month, discretionary income was $200 per month. First thing we did was to consolidate our debt onto the line of credit (heloc) which freed up money to bump our discretionary income up to $850 per month. Next, we started charging everything we could on our credit card. That was gas, groceries, tv, cell phones, everything allowable; then paying the credit card in full each month with the heloc. We followed with removing our escrow from our mortgage and paying it outright; which lowered our mortgage pmt and freed up even more discretionary income. After doing all of this, we were amazed at how quickly all of that debt was gone. Our heloc was paid down within 3 months! Then the program prompted us to transfer about $3200 from our heloc to our primary mortgage as a principal only pmt. We are now very close to having that amt pd down and will be making another transfer in the next 5 weeks.
One thing that I haven’t heard anyone discuss is how much easier our finances are to handle now. I don’t spend near as much time sorting through and paying bills. It has simplified my financial situation. We apply our paychecks weekly and balance our MMA with our heloc statement monthly. I spend maybe 30 minutes per month on my bills and updating our MMA. That’s it! Everytime I add income or expenses into the MMA, I can see directly what effect it has on our payoff. I no longer charge stuff and make pmts on anything (credit cards, dept stores, home improvement, loans, etc).
Another really cool thing is that because we deposit our paychecks weekly, we don’t have a pmt due at the end of the month on the heloc. The bank adds interest onto the heloc and accepts our weekly deposits as our pmt. We get a statement in the mail monthly, but only use it to make sure that our MMA agrees with the bank.
In doing these things, we have paid down the principal balance of our primary mortgage by about $5000 in 6 months! That is amazing and I am very pleased with our $3500 investment. Not only have we cut a huge chunk in our mortgage, but we have also simplified our finances, and consolidated all of our other debt (which I’ll admit wasn’t extremely large to begin with which I think is why it was paid down so quickly). Not to mention that we had 28 years left on our mortgage and are now looking at 8.3 years to be not only mortgage free, but also completely debt free (including having the heloc paid in full).
I just want people to know that I am a homeowner, not an agent. The only thing I have to gain from posting this is the hope that it will help some people to experience the same sense of relief and freedom that I have experienced through this product.
Good luck everyone – I hope this post helps some of you.