There is no need for a large "money merge account" in order to pay off your home in about a third the time–or years sooner, at the very least. United First Financial is not the only company offering such a product. (I'm working on a comparison chart that will outline the differences among the various early payoff strategies and software being offered today. There are many.)

What bothers me about some of them - and UFF's Money Merge Account is not the worst, and I don't mean to single it out as such: it just happens to be well-known - is the amount of "house" they put "at risk" in taking out large home equity lines of credit and drawing down a large percentage of that money to pay off the home earlier. One such product puts as much as possible of the home into a HELOC. In other words, if it were possible to put 100% of the home's financing into a HELOC, they would.

The problem with this technique is that it puts the entire home into greater risk than it would be at a low, fixed-rate mortgage. There is simply no need for that other than the need to increase the home buyer's dependency upon the company to help them navigate the stormy waters of a high-risk payoff schemes.

I don't say this simply to promote my own product Let your Mortgage Make you Rich! I have plenty of ways to get the word out about that little 86-page do-it-yourself manual. I mention it because it strikes me as a tactic designed specifically to create dependency upon the mother-teat–the company that charges excessive amounts for its product and then needs to justify the expense by making paying off your home with a HELOC seem way too scary to accomplish on one's own.

At the very least, get on my mailing list. I promise not to inundate you. You can cancel at any time with a single click.

It reminds me of a conversation I had a few years back with a kitchen cabinet installer. I asked him why it took 3-4 weeks to install new kitchen cabinets. It seemed to me all that was involved was removing the old ones, smoothing out any wall blemishes, and hanging the new ones. He said "That's about it."

"Then why give people the stress involved in having their kitchen torn up for three weeks?"

"Because it costs $4000-5000. You have to justify the cost. The easiest way is to make it seem difficult."