As you go through life, everything changes. The only thing certain in life is, in fact, change. So when you first get a job or you first start in business, your goal is to create 100% of your earned income to support your lifestyle. And as time goes by and you evolve towards retirement, your reliance on earned income will go down and you will transition to 100% of your lifestyle being funded by passive income. And as we’re evolving from 100% earned income to 100% passive income, there are various stages.
Now, whether you are a W-2 employee or a business owner, When you’re first starting out, oftentimes you’re just making enough to get by. All you want to do is to support your expenses and your lifestyle. However, over time, and as things change, hopefully, you’re able to earn some more. Maybe you got a promotion or expanded your business.
You’re earning enough income to not only cover your lifestyle but also to put money away in a savings account or an emergency fund. And then phase three, really simple. You have enough to cover your lifestyle. You have enough for your emergency fund. And now you can start investing to create assets that will generate passive income. And the fourth phase is when all of your lifestyle can be covered with income from passive sources.
According to a recent study by Intuit, 61% of business owners around the world struggle with cash flow. That means they’re not covering their lifestyle. 69% of business owners either sleep less or admit to losing sleep due to cash flow concerns. And the point is these people are having trouble covering their overhead. So it’s almost impossible for them to start saving because they’re dealing with these cash flow issues.
So the question becomes, how do you transition between these phases? A lot of times people try to go from phase one all the way to phase three, where they have passive income generated for them through their business. However, it’s important to build a foundation of savings that you have liquidity, access, and control over so that you are not completely bogged down by debt and other financial pressures that come with these big expenses.
That’s why it’s really important to go from phase one to phase two. You need to create that emergency fund, that savings that can be your backstop whenever you go to another phase and then all of a sudden the rug gets pulled out from under you.
One way we help our clients to build that safety net and to build an actual pool of cash that they have liquidity use and control over is by using specially designed whole life insurance policies designed for cash accumulation so that they’re less dependent on banks and finance companies and they’re actually able to own that finance function in their own life.
So instead of going to the bank down the street to finance a purchase for their business or their family or anything like that, they’re able to go to an entity that they own and control and they have a contractual guaranteed access to that cash to finance the things of life. Whether it be a business purchase, like a new vehicle, or they want to go on vacation with their family and they need the cash flow to do so.
The key there is that because they’ve taken this step to create that savings through a specially designed life insurance policy, they now have access to capital and nothing is telling them that they can’t take some of that money and use it to grow their business, to create passive assets. And that’s the key.
You see, these policies are great for a few things. Number one is getting out of bad debt and debt that has an excessive amount of interest being charged or maybe you want to refinance that debt through the policy so you own and control those terms.
Also, it’s a great place to warehouse wealth because you have tax-deferred growth within the policy as well as guaranteed access through the policy loan provision and it’s also a great place to store money for investments.
You can put money into the policy and then borrow against the cash value in that policy to go out and make investments so you’re able to earn a higher rate of return on your money. Whether that be investing in your business or a great stock opportunity, or maybe you want to make a loan to your family member.
The possibilities are endless with these policies because you own and control the financing function the only person you need to qualify for the loan with is you. And that’s a key point. You’re not asking permission when you request a life insurance policy loan. You’re giving an order that is not a small distinction.
If you’d like to get started with this process, be sure to schedule your free strategy session today. Also, if you want to learn exactly how we put this process to work for our clients, check out our free web course, The Four Steps to Financial Freedom.
And remember, it’s not how much money you make. It’s how much money you keep that really matters.
