How to Get the Most Out of Your Income: Proven Strategies for Financial Control

A lot of people come to us feeling frustrated and stuck. They’re earning a good income—whether it’s from a job or a business—yet they don’t feel financially free. Whether their income is $100,000 or $500,000, the feeling is the same. This frustration stems not from how much they make, but from how they’re using their money. And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today—how to get the most out of your income.

The biggest issue most people think they’re struggling with is that they’re not earning enough. But in reality, regardless of how much income they make or revenue they generate, it’s how they’re using their money that’s the real problem. Specifically, it’s how they’ve been conditioned to use their money in ways that are actually detrimental to them, their families, and their businesses. Instead, their current approach benefits financial institutions, large corporations, and the government.

Think about it—when you rack up credit card debt, it’s natural to want to get it under control. Credit card interest rates are sky-high. I recently received a letter from my Macy’s card stating that the APR was increasing to 35%. Fortunately, I don’t have a balance on that card, but imagine if you did. It makes perfect sense to want to pay that off as soon as possible. Or consider your mortgage—maybe you’re tired of that monthly bill and want to eliminate it, so you start funneling all your extra cash toward paying it off.

But here’s the counterintuitive part: the first step to regaining control of your finances is not to focus on eliminating those debts immediately, but to create a pool of money that you own and control. Secure your financial future first, before everyone else’s.

Stop Giving Away Control

The first step is to stop giving away control of your money. Once you’ve done that, you can redirect the money you were using to pay down debt toward building your pool of capital. When that pool gets large enough, you can borrow against it, pay interest back to it, and regain control of your financial future.

Yes, it’s admirable to want to get out of debt, but the strategies most people use to get out of debt are actually preventing them from getting ahead financially.

Build Your Pool of Cash First

Initially, you’ll need to cut back on expenses to start building that pool of cash. This can feel uncomfortable, especially when you’re already paying interest on your debts. But by taking this step now—by enduring that discomfort—you’re setting yourself up for a safer financial future. You’re creating opportunities and making decisions that prevent you from getting backed into a corner again.

It’s important to remember that this is a long-term process, not instant gratification. In today’s world, we all want immediate results. It might seem like a quick win to pay off a credit card balance, but then you no longer have access to that money. When an unexpected expense comes up, you’re forced to rely on credit again. It’s a vicious cycle—getting out of debt only to get back into debt. The question is, are you making any real progress?

The Power of Financial Independence

One of the most powerful aspects of building your pool of money is that it gives you options. You don’t have to self-finance every purchase just because you have the cash. If there’s a better financing option available, you can take advantage of it. The key is having the choice. Having the option to either self-finance or use someone else’s money is what financial independence is all about.

If you’re ready to take the first step toward financial freedom and want to learn more about how we put this process to work for our clients, schedule your free strategy session today or check our free webinar on out website.

Remember, it’s not how much money you make—it’s how much money you keep that really matters. Take control of your financial future today.

How to Increase Your Net Worth

 

Because our money never leaves the policy, our money continuously earns compound interest even while we’re using it. It’s as if our money’s in two places at once, because quite literally it is. We’ve cracked the code on creating wealth by making purchases.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if you could increase your net worth by making everyday purchases? Most people think there are only two ways to make a purchase. You could either pay cash or you could finance. But today we’re going to talk about a third option, an option that allows you to earn continuous compound interest on your money even after you make the purchase.

When it comes to making major capital purchases, the often most convenient way is to finance the purchase. Think about it – when you go to buy a car, how easy is it to show proof of income and them to give you a loan?

So when we borrow, we have no access to capital. We have to use somebody else’s capital, therefore pay them interest, and in the process, we’re not earning interest, but make no mistake we’re using the collateral of our future income to pay for the purchase. The bank is loaning us money because they know we have the ability to earn income.

Since we’re financing and we’re giving up that monthly cashflow, it hinders our ability to save for the future. And then the next time we need to go buy a car. We’re forced to finance again, because we didn’t have the ability we didn’t have the cash flow to build up a pool of cash to self-finance or pay cash for that car.

So you see how every financial splash we make creates a ripple effect down the road.

Every decision we make financially could either move us towards financial freedom or further away from financial freedom. Often times these debts snowball. So it’ll start with a car loan and then it’ll be paying for the wedding and tuition for our kids and appliances and furniture. These monthly payments slowly grow and grow and grow. Before you know it, we’re out of control of our cashflow.

Think about it from the perspective of a financial institution, what does the financial institution want? What does it need? It needs our money. And the best way to get that is to do it on a systematic basis – on a monthly basis. So the more of our monthly cashflow that the financial institution can control, the more that they can control us, but the more profits that they could make.

The goal of every debtor is to finally be able to go out and pay cash for that car. They’ll save month after month, year after year until they finally have enough money to go out and pay cash for that car. But what happens when they drain their tank down to zero is – they gave up all the potential to earn compound interest on that money.

You see the person who pays cash – does so, so they don’t pay interest. They think they’re getting ahead of the game, but really they’re always going back to zero. They save. They wipe it out. They save again. They still have payments – it’s to a savings account, but at the end of the day, they’re still not earning interest and they’re really not in control of their financial future.

You see, there are only two components when it comes to compound interest and that’s time and money. Every time we drain that tank, we’re losing all that time. And we all know time is an asset that we can never regain.

A lot of times we talk to folks who don’t finance and the reason they don’t finance is because, “I hate paying interest.” they’ll say. My response to them is, “Oh, so you like to lose interest?” And then I get a look like, what are you talking about? And then I explained to them how they’re losing interest by paying cash.

So if financing isn’t the answer and paying cash isn’t the answer – what is the solution to finally achieving financial freedom? And here’s the secret. It’s not what you buy – it’s how you pay for it, that really matters. So you may be wondering how we do this. The answer is we use specially designed whole life insurance policies. Mainly because they have some unique characteristics and that we’re able to collateralize loans against the cash value of the policy. What that means is we’re never taking money from the policy. We’re never draining that tank, but instead we’re placing a lien against that cash value so that we have access to make major capital purchases and basically self-finance.

Because our money never leaves the policy, our money continuously earns compound interest even while we’re using it. It’s as if our money’s in two places at once, because quite literally it is. We’ve cracked the code on creating wealth by making purchases.

There are two main differences between this type of financing and traditional financing. The first is that it’s an unstructured loan repayment schedule. Meaning that you get to determine when and how much you pay back towards this policy loan. And the second key difference is that every time you make a payment, your payment is literally increasing your net worth.

Make no mistake about it – whether you finance through conventional methods, through a bank or a finance company, or with using our process and borrowing against your cash value – every payment you make will increase somebody’s net worth. Using our process, you will increase your net worth.

So every time you make a payment, you increased your future ability to access that capital again. So that over time you’re less and less dependent on the banks and financial institutions – and ultimately can reach freedom this way.

Earlier we mentioned that it’s not, what you buy, it’s how you pay for it. We talked about financing, we talked about paying cash and then we talked about using our process. In this process, we focus on showing you how to regain control of your money. You see, when you focus on controlling your money, all of your decisions become very clear. It’s only when we take our eye off the ball and we focus on interest rates, or we focus on getting a high rate of return on our money that we really start to lose control of our financial future.

If you’re ready to finally regain control of your financial future, please check out our one hour web course. It’s on our website tier1capital.com. We go into great detail about how our process works and how it could work in your life.

Remember, it’s not how much money you make – it’s how much money you keep, that really matters!

Mortgages: Spoiled for Choice

It is likely that during your lifetime you will allocate more dollars to the place you are going to sleep than anything else. As such, the potential to transfer your wealth away unknowingly and unnecessarily as a result of decisions made surrounding your mortgage is just as high. There is a great deal of misinformation and misconception concerning this topic, and often our decisions are made based on hearsay or commonly accepted perceptions, what others have done, or even media influence, not what is necessarily correct.

Choosing a Mortgage

There are so many options available; it can be daunting which option is best to say the least. It is no wonder that making the right choice can be very confusing, and it can be easy to doubt that you have made the right decision even after the choice has been made. Ask yourself this. If the mortgage lending institutions made the same amount on every mortgage option, how many options would there be? Obviously, there would only be one. Since there are so many, it can be helpful to have someone on your side that is more knowledgeable about the subject to steer you clear of the pitfalls.

People tend to maintain different staunchly held views about which mortgage is “best,” and as a result it can be difficult to have an open conversation about it. After all, nobody wants to hear that the decisions they have made might not have been the best ones. What’s more is that these decisions have not been made haphazardly, but with great care and effort. We make decisions based on the things we “know,” which we also think are true. But what if what you “know” turned out not to be true?

The Mortgage Quiz

Let’s run through the mental exercise of taking the following true/false quiz:

  1. A large down payment will save you more money over time than a small down payment
  2. A 15-year mortgage will save you more money over time than a 30-year mortgage
  3. Making extra principal payments saves you money
  4. The interest rate is the main factor in determining the cost of a mortgage
  5. You are more secure having your house paid off than financed 100%

Chances are you answered most, if not all of these questions with a reasonable degree of certainty. However, if you have made mortgage decisions based on what you thought to be true, and it turns out that the answers are different than what you thought, you could be negatively impacting your wealth potential as a result.

  • Does the value of your house go up when you make extra principal payments?
  • Do your payments go down?
  • Can you easily get to the money in your house after you put it there?

These are just a few of the questions we will discuss together and help you determine which mortgage option is best for you. If what you thought to be true about mortgages turned out not to be true, when would you want to know?

How GameStop changed the way we think about the stock market.

 

 

“What if you could develop a strategy that would prevent you from ever losing money ever again, and because your money was safe, you were in a position to take advantage of any manipulations or volatility in the market.”

 

Have you ever felt that the market is being manipulated by wall street, the government and banks? Do you think it’s being manipulated for our benefit or for their benefits? Did you ever give thought to the fact that not one American CEO or senior executive did any jail time for the 2007, 2008 financial crisis that almost took down the entire financial system? That’s when they went begging to their buddies in Washington to get a bailout and you and I ended up paying for the bailout. How about this? We can’t benefit from insider trading, but they can. Congress set themselves up where they’re completely exempt from insider trading, but yet Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading. 

We have to stop playing the game by their rules because the system is rigged against us. We need to play by a different set of rules to set ourselves up for financial success. We have the opportunity to take advantage of the markets rather than being a victim to the markets. Here’s another example of how the game is rigged against us. For years and years, hedge fund managers were able to short stocks and take advantage of the market. However, in the early months of 2021, when the general public began to manipulate the stock for Game Stop, the popular trading app Robinhood, took the stock off their platform so that no one else could take advantage. No one else could benefit from the market manipulation. 

Again, it’s another example of “we could manipulate the market”, meaning the insiders, but once the public gets a hold of it, “Oh no. Now what’s wrong.” Now the regulators are talking about stepping in to make sure that this could never happen again. Do you think the regulation is going to be for our benefit or for their benefit? 

Why play a game that’s set up for them to benefit and for you to lose? What if you could develop a strategy that would prevent you from ever losing money ever again, and because your money was safe, you were in a position to take advantage of any manipulations or volatility in the market. Furthermore, even better than that, what if you can do so with total elimination or reduced taxation on your money! Wouldn’t that be vital information to have? If that type of planning was available, when would you want to get started? 

 

What am I doing wrong financially?

“We focus on the lifetime capital potential tank because that’s where the greatest opportunity lies for you to improve the efficiency of your money, improve your cashflow, and ultimately increase the amount of wealth that you’re able to accumulate over your lifetime.”

 

Up until 1993, I was exactly like you. I was making great income, but I was living pay to pay. The reason I was living pay to pay is because I was doing everything by the textbook of conventional wisdom. I had a 15 year mortgage and was paying extra on the mortgage. I was maxing out my retirement account. I was paying cash for as many things as I possibly could, but embarrassingly, I had credit cards and I had to borrow money from my father in order to pay my mortgage. The reason my cashflow was being pinched was because of the things that I was taught to do by the so-called experts. 

There are two factors that can really pinch your cashflow. The first is an unsteady income. This could be whether you are a business owner and have a cyclical business cycle, whether you’re a sales person and commission comes when commission comes or maybe you’re an employee and you were expecting a bonus that didn’t come through. These things can really tighten up your monthly cashflow and leave you feeling stuck. 

The second factor we’re going to look at is when unexpected major expenses come up, whether it’s tuition for kids or an annual premium for insurance that you’re paying, or maybe you need new tires or car repair, or we all know how bad it is when your refrigerator breaks and you’re forced to go out and buy whatever’s available at the store. All these things could really leave a dent in your personal economic model and leave your cashflow feeling tight. 

So let’s take a look at this model. This is what we refer to as a personal economic model. We all have one. This is how we show how money works in our lives. Let’s start with income, your income, all the income that you’ll ever earn in your life. We’ll go through this lifetime capital potential tank. It’s the largest tank, cause it has the most money flowing through it, but it doesn’t stay in there. It flows through this tube and hits your lifestyle regulator. Your lifestyle regulator is where you have choices. You can either spend all your money or you could force some up into your future lifestyle tanks, your investments, and your savings. 

Conventional wisdom tells us that we should focus on getting a high rate of return on our investments. That’s what most financial advisors do. They focus solely on the yellow tank and showing you how to get a higher rate of return, probably taking on additional risk. But our focus is different. We focus on the lifetime capital potential tank because that’s where the greatest opportunity lies for you to improve the efficiency of your money, improve your cashflow, and ultimately increase the amount of wealth that you’re able to accumulate over your lifetime. 

So let’s take an example of exactly how making your money more efficient can improve your personal economic model. Let’s take a look at wealth and income potential. Let’s assume you’re age 42. Do you plan on retiring at 70? Your current income is $100,000 and you don’t expect any increase in your income and you don’t have anything saved to this point, but you could expect an investment return of 5% at your retirement age of 70. Your income potential would be $2.8 million. It’s a $100,000 of income times 28 years, gives us 2.8 million. Your wealth potential would be about 6.1 million. That comes from investing your full $100,000 of income over that 28 years. 

Obviously it’s unrealistic to think that you can save 100% of your money because there are expenses that come along with our income. Whether we like it or not first and foremost are taxes, we’re going to put you in a 30% tax bracket. Now that’s federal state, local gas tax, real estate tax, and any other taxes that you would encounter on a day to day living. Our wealth potential now is reduced to $4.2 million. Additionally there’s debt. The average family pays 34 and a half cents of every dollar to service their debt. That’s student loans, car loans, vacation loans, you name it. Now our wealth potential is reduced to 2.1 million and then we have lifestyle, groceries, utilities, insurances, and hobbies. Now we’re down to $600,000. Again, conventional wisdom wants us to focus on getting a high rate of return. Well, let’s assume we can go from 5% to 8%. 

They have to take some risks to do it, but now our wealth potential goes to a million dollars and to them, it can’t get any better than that. But again, the reason you can’t get ahead is because your cashflow is pinched. The reason your cashflow is pinched is because of taxes and debt. What if we can show you how to reduce your taxes from 30% to 25%, look at the effect that has on your wealth potential. Keep in mind, we’re going to reduce your investment return from 8% to 5%. So you don’t have to take any risk in order to do it. Our wealth potential grows from 600,000 to 900,000. It grows by 50% just by reducing our taxes by 5%, but we’re not finished. 

We could also show you how to control your debt. If we can show you how to reduce your debt from 34.5 % percent down to 20%, look what happens to your wealth potential. Now you’re at $1.8 million just by reducing your taxes and controlling your debt. Now, all of a sudden you’ve tripled the amount of money you’re able to save. We’ve done all of this without having to reduce your lifestyle in order to do it. That’s the value of controlling your cashflow. This is how you can get ahead without having to earn or generate additional income. 

Here’s the good news. If you’re ready to get rid of that stuck feeling, all you need to do is stop giving up control of your money. We always say, it’s not how much money you make, it’s how much money you keep that really matters. It’s not your income that’s holding you back, it’s not your rate of return that’s holding you back. It’s the inefficiencies in your cashflow that are stopping you from getting ahead. 

Once you focus on what’s important, control of your cashflow, each and every decision becomes more and more clear and you’ll know exactly what to do. Our process focuses on identifying exactly where and how you’re giving up control, Whoever controls your cashflow controls your life.

 

 

How to shift your money to become financially free!

 

“That’s exactly why our process aims to put you back in control of your cashflow, so that you can build a pool of cash that you have access to when you need it with no questions asked.”

 

 

When people come to meet with us, they have the mistaken belief that the reason they’re stuck financially is because they don’t earn enough income. Well, we have a secret. We have clients who make $50,000 per year, and they’re stuck financially. We have clients who make over $800,000 per year and they’re stuck financially. Now, if you’re making $800,000 per year, it’s not your income that’s holding you back. 

We’ve cracked the code. What we found is, it’s not your income that’s holding you back, it’s how you’re using your money. By making your cashflow more efficient, plugging the holes in your leaky bucket, you’ll be able to experience true financial freedom. Let’s face it. Most financial frustrations arise from the fact that we don’t have access to money. Whether it’s to expand our business, educate our children, or take our family on a vacation. We’re forced to turn to banks and credit companies to get access to their money. In the process, we’re literally obligating our future cashflow to them. We found that whoever controls your cashflow, controls your life. 

That’s exactly why our process aims to put you back in control of your cashflow, so that you can build a pool of cash that you have access to when you need it with no questions asked. Here’s an example of how our process helped transform a cashflow problem to true financial freedom. We met with a client about three years ago, he was an accomplished business owner earning over $400,000 a year, but he was still struggling to pay for things like private school, expanding his business, providing for his family and not to mention every quarter when taxes were due, he was drawing on a credit line to fund those taxes. 

Now, as an entrepreneur, his natural inclination was to earn his way out of this problem. But after meeting with us, we identified the leaky holes in his bucket, which were primarily the fact that he was paying down his debt too quickly. He was literally taking profits from his business and transferring those profits to the bank to pay down his debt. The bank now controlled that money, those profits in his eyes, he was building equity, but he didn’t control that equity. Consequently, when it came time to pay his quarterly taxes, he didn’t have any access to money cause he gave it all to the bank. So what did he have to do? He had to draw on his credit line. When we asked him to sort of take a step back and look at what was happening, he was paying down this debt, but he was increasing this debt. Our question to him was, are you making any progress? 

So let’s take a look to see how our process transformed his situation. Step one was to slow down the rate at which he was paying down his debt immediately, that increased his cashflow by over 40% per month. Now we didn’t change his revenue at all. The amount of money going into his pocket every month was exactly the same. What changed was the amount of money he was keeping. Step two was to redirect some of that money to build a pool of cash that he owned and controlled so that he would have access to it when he needed it in the future, to reach his financial goals. 

Three years later, we’re proud to announce that he’s sitting on over $850,000 worth of cash. Imagine how that would feel. If three years ago you were struggling to pay your quarterly taxes and now today you’re sitting on $850,000 worth of cash. Now understand the power of this process. He’s not working any harder. His cashflow hasn’t changed. The only thing that changed is how he was using his money and because he regained control of his cashflow, he’s now regained control of his life. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How does money work in my life?

 

” It takes discipline and focus in order to save for the future. “

 

This picture is what we refer to as the personal economic model. The fact of the matter is, everybody has a personal economic model. We use this diagram as a tool to show people how money works in their lives. The ultimate goal is to get to position A, where there’s enough money in the future lifestyle tanks, the risk and the safe tank to support our current lifestyle in retirement and through our life expectancy. So let’s take a look at how money works in our lives. 

Let’s start by taking a look at how money enters our system. You’ll notice over here, we have the lifetime capital potential tank. You’ll also notice that this is the largest tank on the screen. That’s because anytime we earn income, whether it’s at our job, maybe an inheritance, maybe we will win the lottery, all that money flows through our lifetime capital potential tank. It doesn’t stay in there and it goes right through this tube and then hits the tax filter. Did you put the text filter on your personal economic model? No, none of us do. 

It comes pre-installed on all the models and the government puts it there. What it does is, it diverts money from our lifetime capital potential and it diverts it into the government’s personal economic model. Once the money flows through the tax filter, we then reach our lifestyle regulator. This is where we have some choices. We can either save some money for our future lifestyle, or we could spend 100% of our income on our current lifestyle. After money flows through and is spent on current lifestyle, there’s no getting it back into our system and it makes it very difficult for us to reach position A. Rather than consuming all of our income. We have a choice as to how much we save for the future. Notice, that our future lifestyle tube is pointing upwards. It takes discipline and focus in order to save for the future. 

Now we have some choices. We could either put money in the investment tank or the savings tank. Notice that the investment tank is labeled “risk”. There’s no lid on that tank. Depicting the fact that we have the potential to possibly lose some money in that tank. Alternatively, we can put money in the savings tank. The savings tank has a lid on it depicting the fact that we could never lose money in that tank. As long as money is in that tank. 

Remember the ultimate goal is to get to position A, where we could turn off our income and we have enough money in both of these tanks to fund our lifestyle through our life expectancy. But what happens if your lifestyle regulator is turned up to 100%? That means that you’ve had very little success in saving money for the future. In the past, maybe you have a little money in your 401k at work, and maybe you have a bare minimum of an emergency fund. What happens when you’re in this position is that you have no access to capital. What happens is, you’re forced to borrow money and take on liabilities. 

Maybe you have a little bit of credit card debt. Maybe you have a car loan. Maybe there’s some student loans that you haven’t had the chance to pay off yet. Notice that all of these debts have no collateral. The money spent on the credit cards, that’s gone. The car is a depreciating asset that the bank really doesn’t want.The car and the education, they can’t take your education back. So you have no collateral. But the fact of the matter is you do have collateral. 

You are obligating your future income to pay those debts. And by obligating your future income, that reduces your future lifestyle and further compromises your ability to save for your future lifestyle. Consequently, that really puts in jeopardy your ability to get to position A. As you can see, we use this personal economic model to show people how money enters their system. More importantly, the consequences of all the choices that they can make with their money. Are you living within your means? If you’re not sure, we recommend you start with a budget. Take inventory of what you have coming in every month and what your monthly expenses are and what you could reasonably afford to save every month.

 

 

How do I protect my money from inflation?

“As long as you keep your money in the whole life insurance policy, your money’s going to grow on a tax deferred basis.”

 

 

Inflation is a rise in prices of goods and services. Inflation reduces the purchasing power of our dollars. The problem is, the longer we hold onto our money, the less it can buy for us. Here’s an example. If you were to go into your backyard and dig a hole and bury $1,000 and leave it there for 10 years and after 10 years you go back and dig it up, what will you have? Well, it’ll be something that looks like a thousand dollars, but at 3% inflation over those 10 years, that $1,000 will actually only have the purchasing power of $744. The problem is not only will you have lost $256 of purchasing power, but you will have lost 10 years of time that you can never recapture. The government is destroying the purchasing power of our dollars every time they print money. Do you think our government will need more money in the future? If our government needs more money, there’s only two ways they can get that money. Number one is taxes. Number two is they can print more money.

There are six ways that whole life insurance can help protect your money against the effects of inflation. The first way is buying dollars for future delivery for pennies. Which means the premium you’re paying is pennies compared to the dollars you’re buying in a death benefit. What better way to protect your net worth than to buy discounted dollars for future delivery?

The second way is that your premium stays the same, but because of inflation over time, it’ll feel like less. For example, if you have a thousand-dollar premium at 3% inflation and 10 years, it’s only going to feel like $744. In this instance, you have inflation working for you rather than against you.

The third way that whole life insurance can help protect your money against the effects of inflation is what we refer to as multiple duty dollars. A lot of times clients will ask us, “Hey, I want to start saving, but I have to pay down my debt first.” We actually show them how to start saving today and how to pay their debt off quicker. How we do that is through whole life insurance. We take $1 that was just going to perform debt reduction and use it to reduce debt, to create an asset, to create a death benefit, to create a disability benefit, to create a long-term care benefit and provide retirement supplement. We took $1, that was previously doing one job, and got it to perform the job of 6 multiple duty dollars.

The fourth way whole life insurance can protect against inflation is dividends. Although dividends aren’t guaranteed, dividends typically increase as the policy matures. That’s an addition to the guaranteed growth within the policy. As interest rates rise in the market, the dividends in the policy typically increase. All other safe money products, as interest rates rise, the value of the product decreases because of the inverse relationship between interest rates and price.

The fifth way that whole life insurance can protect your money against inflation is through collateralization.  The loan feature, your loan against a life insurance policy, is actually a collateralized loan against your cash value. So literally your money could be in two places at once because you’re borrowing against your cash value and getting a separate loan from the insurance company. Our clients have found that this can help them to take advantage of tremendous opportunities that are created when the market crashes because they can borrow against their cash value. When the market is down, they can buy into the market and then sell when the market rises. They can then put the money back into their policy and then use the money the profits gained from that transaction to supplement their income or to buy another policy. Our clients have found this to be a tremendous tool to show them how to take advantage of downturns in the market rather than become victims of market volatility.

The sixth way that whole life insurance can help protect against inflation is taxes. As long as you keep your money in the whole life insurance policy, your money’s going to grow on a tax deferred basis. Additionally, you’re able to access your cash on a tax-favored basis. This is a huge advantage over other financial products.

In summary, life insurance can help protect your money against inflation by reducing or eliminating taxation. It also makes your money more efficient, think multiple duty dollars. Thus putting you in a position to take advantage of market volatility, rather than becoming a victim of market volatility.

 

 

How to save money without reducing your lifestyle!

 

 

 

Want to know how to save money without reducing your lifestyle? In today’s video, we offer tips on how you can tell if you’ve lost control over your money. An example is, needing permission or approval in order to access your money. How you use your money is more important than were your money resides. Watch the full video for 5 areas on where you should check to see if your money is leaving your control.

Our process shows them how to start saving now and pay off their debt in an efficient manner. “

 

You want to save more money but can’t afford to reduce your current lifestyle? Before we get started, let’s identify how you’ll know you’re not in control of your money. A lot of people have money on paper, but when it comes to accessing their cash, they have no liquidity use or control of that money. Here’s some examples. You’ll know you’re not in control of your money when you have to get permission or approval in order to access your money. For things like home equity, you’ll know you’re not in control of your money when you have to pay a penalty in order to access your money.

For accessing your retirement plans before age 59 and a half, you’ll know you’re not in control of your money when you have to pay a tax on the annual growth or gains of your savings or investments. For things like stocks and mutual funds, I think of capital gains and 1099 is a carrying charge for the privilege of owning those investments. Finally, you’ll know you’re not in control of your money when you move money from one account to the other and it doesn’t increase your net worth.

This occurs when you pay extra on debts for cars, installment loans, or credit cards. When searching for money that’s leaving your control, you should look at five areas. If you optimize these five areas, you’ll increase your access to cash, reduce your debt, and increase your net worth all without having to reduce your current lifestyle.

There are only three places where you can put your money.  Number one is tax deferred, but when you take the money out, it’s taxable in the future. Number two is currently taxable where you get a 1099 or a capital gains tax at the end of the year, and number three is tax-free, where you never pay tax on your money. Because you have a choice as to where you save your money. Paying taxes on your savings and investments is optional. Most Americans are saving any of their tax deferred or currently taxable accounts.

Let’s face it, the safest and sure way to maximize the efficiency of your money is to eliminate taxes. It’s not how much money you make, it’s how much money you keep that really matters. We’re trained by wall street to focus on rate of return instead of control and efficiency. The problem with the wall street model is that it leaves your money at risk to market volatility and ever-changing tax rates and laws.

The second area we look at is how you choose to fund your retirement plan. Conventional wisdom tells us that from the day we start working until the day we retire, we should maximize contributions to our qualified retirement plans. The problem with this is it leaves our money inaccessible and in order to access it, we need to pay taxes, penalties, and sometimes fees. Also, we don’t know what the final cost is going to be to get our money in retirement so we don’t have access to our money now and we don’t know what it’s going to cost to get our money in the future.

The third area is mortgages. When buying a house, it may seem appealing to get a 15 year mortgage because the interest rates are lower, but by doing so, you’re giving up control of more of your monthly income to the bank and true, you’re building more home equity, but remember, you need to qualify in order to access that equity. By extending the term of your mortgage, you’re giving up less control to the bank, less control of your monthly income and less control of your net worth. We suggest you save in a place that you own and control, such as a specially designed whole life insurance policy built for cash accumulation rather than death benefit. For more information on how to choose the best mortgage for you, check out our video in the description box below.

The fourth area is paying for college funding. Tuition could cost more than a house, in some cases. It’s important to build a plan that not only pays for your children’s college, but keeps you on track for your retirement lifestyle. Nobody should have to choose between paying for their children’s college and funding their own retirement.

The fifth and final area where you give up control of your cash flow is how you choose to fund major capital purchases. A major capital purchase is anything you can’t fund using monthly cash flow. Things like cars, vacation or even a home. We finance everything we buy. By that I mean we either pay interest to a bank for the privilege of using their money or we pay cash and give up interest on our own money so we either pay up or give up. We teach our clients how to use whole life insurance to continually earn interest even after they make major capital purchases.

By using the policy loan provision, our clients are able to access their money, no questions asked in order to make the major capital purchase. By doing it this way, their money enjoys the benefits of uninterrupted compounding. Many people come to us and ask, should I pay off my debt before I start saving? Our process shows them how to start saving now and pay off their debt in an efficient manner.

By looking at the five areas, we’re able to help our clients find money within their current cashflow to begin saving now without having to reduce their current lifestyle. In order to do so, how you use your money is more important than where your money resides. Think of it in terms of golf. Where your money resides is the equivalent of the golf club. How you use your money is the equivalent of the golf swing. If you wanted to improve in golf, doesn’t it make sense to focus on the golf swing rather than the golf club? Regaining control of the money you’re losing to these five areas will leave you in a safer financial position where you’ll have more control, more access to capital, and less dependence on banks.