equity, you'll need a to get from a bank a home equity line of credit ( HELOC ) -- far preferable to a home equity loan ( HEL ) for generating cash savings. Of course, the $5000 must be repaid. If you were unaware of ways to reduce interest on a HELOC, and paid it back over a year's time at 8.25%, it would cost you $430. So in this worst of all cases scenario, the $22,651 you cut off your stomach ache cost you $430. That's more than a 5000% increase in value, a 184% annualized return. Some people object to debt and will not use this technique because it calls for a HELOC. In the example, the $5000 draw on home equity reduced the $200,000 of mortgage principal owed on the primary residence. By changing $5000 from mortgage debt into HELOC debt, we now have $195,000 in ice cream and $5000 in cookies. The same amount of sweets as before, just in a different form. In other words, we restructured a miniscule part of the home loan. We didn't borrow more money. But we did cut the stomach ache by nearly $23,000. Employing this technique not just once, but once a year, cuts $119,480 off projected mortgage interest paybacks -- that's a lot of stomach ache avoided. To put it in perspective, your home would be paid for in half the time, and you could pay someone's way through college, or feed and clothe 30 starving children for