secret to wealth

Making Compound Interest Work For You

 

“It’s really the best of both worlds when you’re a wealth creator.”

 

Albert Einstein once referred to compound interest as the eighth wonder of the world. Here’s the problem. Most people are so focused on not paying interest that their eye is completely taken off the ball. They completely ignore the concept of continually earning interest on their money. But there’s one foundational principle that we need to come to grips with and that is, we finance everything we buy. What does that mean? It means this, you’re either going to finance and pay interest to a bank or somebody else for the privilege of using their money or we’re going to pay cash and therefore give up interest that we could have earned, had we not paid cash. 

That’s the secret. We either pay up or give up. If you’re looking to realize true financial freedom for yourself, keep this in mind. It’s not what you buy, but it’s how you pay for it that really matters. You know, most people think there’s two ways to pay for something. Either finance or pay cash. Well, there’s actually three ways. So let’s take a look at them. If you finance your debtor, you’re working to spend, you have no savings. You earn no interest and you pay interest. Most people recognize or realize that that’s a bad thing. Maybe they were taught by their parents that if you didn’t have enough money to pay cash, you didn’t need the item. Or they saw their parents struggle to get out of debt. Either way, they move to paying cash. So they save, they avoid paying interest, but they earn no interest. And then they pay cash. 

There’s actually a third way, the wealth creator. This is where true financial freedom is really located. You save, you’re using other people’s money to maximize the efficiency of your money. You’re putting leverage to work for you. You save, you continuously earn compound interest. Then, when it’s time to buy something, you collateralize the purchase. Notice the key here in all three areas and all three methods. You still get the purchase. 

It’s really the best of both worlds when you’re a wealth creator. Let’s take a look at what that looks like. Let’s say you finally graduated college and you have your first real job. Everyone at work has new cars and you finally have the income to qualify for a loan. So what do you do? You buy a car, you go to the dealer, you get a loan. 30 days later, you get a coupon booklet. What you did is, you bought a car and now you have payments. So you dug a hole and you filled it up. Five years later, you got a five-year-old car. You don’t have a payment, time to buy another car. You just keep digging a hole and fill it back up. But notice over time, you never get above the financial line of zero. So what’s the alternative? Well, the alternative is to pay cash. Paying cash takes tremendous discipline because in order to pay cash, you have to save first. So you delay the gratification of a new car until you have enough money to pay cash. Then when it’s time to pay cash, you drain down the tank, you spend your savings and then you got to start over. 

Here’s the problem with paying cash. You still have payments because if you want to pay cash for the next car, you have to begin saving the day you bought the car. Then when you have enough money saved for another new car, five years later, then you drain down the tank. Again, notice over time, you don’t get too far above the financial line of zero. In fact, you’re not much better off than the spender. The only difference is, you lost interest along the way. 

The way that we teach our clients is to become the wealth creator. When you’re a wealth creator, you’re saving. Your money is continuously earning compound interest, but then when it’s time to buy something, you collateralize your purchase. What does that mean? You’re using your savings as security against the loan. You’re pledging it as collateral and you still have a payment, but understand, if you finance, you have a payment. If you pay cash, you have a payment. If you’re the wealth creator, your money never stops earning compound interest. That’s the key to true financial freedom. 

It’s like your money is literally in two places at one time because you’re able to make the purchase. You also are still able to earn interest on your savings because you’re never actually touching it. You’re using other people’s money. There are two main variables to compound interest, money and time. Every single time we drain the tank, we’re saying, “don’t worry, I could replenish that cash later.” What we often forget is that, time is a variable that we will never get back. 

Let’s take a look at an example. Let’s say you’re saving $5,000 per year. You’re earning 5% interest on that money. We’re going to look at this over a 30 year period. We’re going to drain the tank down four times by paying cash and we’re going to refill it every five years. So here’s what happens. We go and we buy a car. Now had we not drain down the tank, our money could have continuously earn compound interest for us. And at the end we would have $353,804. But because we decided to pay cash, and we did this four times. And then we finally realized it wasn’t the amount of income that we were earning that was holding us back. It was how we were using our money that was holding us back. We started to continuously earn compound interest on our money. Notice we only have $71,034. That’s a difference of $282,770. Keep in mind, this person figured it out. After 20 years, most people never figure it out. 

Here’s the problem with traditional financial planning. They completely ignore time. They’re so focused on earning a higher rate of return that they completely ignored the two factors of compound interest, time and money. Most people come to us thinking if only I could earn a higher rate of return, I could finally be financially free, but that’s not necessarily the case. 

Let’s say you could earn 7% on your money. If you go through this same pattern of delaying compounding interest, now you’re out $431,000. That’s still a big number but let’s take a look at what happens. If you could earn 3% on your money, that’s a big number. Keep in mind, we made six purchases over a 30 year period of $30,000. That’s $180,000. You’re losing just as much if you caught onto this 20 years down the road in lost opportunity. 

You see, it’s not what you buy, it’s how you pay for it that really matters. What is most important is to never jump off the compound interest curve. The key is to get on the compound interest curve as soon as possible and never jump off. That includes market losses. Although, financial advisors could promise a high rate of return, every time you experience a market loss, you’re jumping off the compound interest curve. We could see here just how detrimental that could be to your financial wealth.

 

 

 

 

How do I pay off my debt?

 

“Our mission as a company is to show people how to regain control of their money.”

 

The problem with getting in the debt cycle is that once you take on that first debt, it becomes difficult to save your income. In the case of an emergency, you’re forced to take on more debt and tie up even more of your income and make it even harder to save. In his bestselling book “Rich dad, poor dad,” Robert Kiyosaki’s foundational principle is to pay yourself first. But if you’re working that hard to pay off your debt, how in the world are you going to be able to pay yourself first? 

So here are some of the problems with consumer debt. First, it places an obligation on your future earnings. You lose the capital to purchases and the financing costs forever. As in, you’re giving up opportunity costs. When you make these purchases, you become a debtor to the creditor. Most importantly, you’re losing control. 

Our mission as a company is to show people how to regain control of their money. With this simple concept, showing them how to regain control of the financing function in their lives. We could make significant progress in showing you how to regain control of not only your money, but your financial future. 

If there’s only one thing you take out of this video, please let it be that “ It’s not what you buy, It’s how you pay for it that really matters.”  Because let’s face it,  every purchase we make is financed. You could either be a debtor, a saver, or wealth creator. Let’s go over the differences. 

This is what a debtor looks like. They have no money. So when they have to buy something, they have to finance it. They have no choice. They dig a hole and then they fill it up and then they dig another hole and they fill that up too. But notice, they never get above the financial line of zero. So what a lot of people do, is they save money in order to spend. They save, save, save, and then when it’s time to buy something, wipe out their savings in order to make the purchase. They keep doing this again and again. Over time they don’t stay above the financial line of zero. 

Then there’s the wealth creator. This is what we help our clients to become. They save as a matter of course. Then, when it’s time to make a purchase, they borrow against their money. They use other people’s money to make their money more efficient, but notice they never interrupt the compounding of interest on their money. Their money is always working for them and they are no longer working for money. That’s the power of becoming a wealth creator and that’s the power of controlling the finance function in your life. 

 

How much should you contribute to your retirement plan?

 

How much should I contribute to my retirement plan? Conventional wisdom tells us that from the day we start working, to the day we retire, we should maximize contributions to our qualified retirement plans. Traditional retirement plans leave your money inaccessible and out of your control. Your goal should be to save in a tool that you can control. This video provides a closer look at retirement plans, and whether or not they are suitable for you and your needs.

 

“Another thing to keep in mind with retirement plans is that they’re often invested in the stock market and there’s no guaranteed that when you go to retire, your savings is going to be intact. “

 

Have you ever wondered how much you should be contributing to your retirement plan or 401k? Traditional qualified retirement plans leave your money inaccessible and out of your control. If your goal is to regain control of your money, then perhaps you should consider saving money in a place that’s safe and allows you access to your cash for things like cars, vacation, tuition, home renovation, and any other purchases, whether planned or unexpected.

When all your money is tied up in retirement plans, you’re at the mercy of the government, wall street and the banks. Let me give you an example. We were introduced to a client who had $1.4 million in a 401k plan. He wanted to take his family on vacation to Disney, but he couldn’t put his hands on $13,000 in order to do so. On paper, this man was a millionaire, but the reality of it was he couldn’t put his hands on $13,000 to take his family on vacation because he didn’t have access to his cash.

The point of the story is it’s not a bad idea to save for retirement. In fact, it’s a very good idea. However, it’s also important to save in a tool that you control, somewhere that’s flexible and allows you access to cash. Another thing to keep in mind with retirement plans is that they’re often invested in the stock market and there’s no guaranteed that when you go to retire, your savings is going to be intact.

People view their retirement plans as savings, but there’s a big difference between savings and investing. Savings should be money that’s accessible and safe. Conventional wisdom tells us that we’ll be in a lower tax bracket when we retire, but taxes is another area in regards to retirement plans that we don’t control. We may be in a lower tax bracket; we may be in a higher tax bracket. The fact of the matter is nobody knows but think about this. You’re deferring taxes into the future of the unknown. It’s like driving a car off the lot, not knowing what the final purchase price is. Would you do that? Most people wouldn’t, but yet every day we fund our retirement plans not knowing what the future cost is going to be to get our own money.In conclusion by maximizing our retirement plan contributions, our money is inaccessible and because our money in accessible, we have to go to banks and credit companies to finance the things of life. Additionally, we’re deferring taxes into an unknown future.

 

How do banks operate?- Implementing the infinite banking concept

Have you ever found yourself wondering how banks make money? Do you want to learn how to regain control of your money? In this video we break down the process behind running a bank, and then we break down how you can keep your money flowing! While this process isn’t easy, we are here to guide you through the process. The four rules we have learned to live by are as following. 1. Always think long-term. 2. Don’t be afraid to capitalize. 3. Don’t steal the peas. 4. Don’t deal with bank if you don’t have to.

Make no mistake, although we park our money at banks, they don’t let it sit there.”

 

Are you thinking about implementing the infinite banking concept to regain control of your money? Well, it’s important to know how commercial banks operate and make money so you could duplicate their process using the infinite banking concept. The first thing banks need to do is, file for a charter. Once the charter is approved, then they have to capitalize the bank. But, understand banks don’t lend you their money. The next step is for them to go and solicit deposits. They usually charge higher interest rates than the neighboring banks in the community, but that’s only step one. Then, step two is to identify borrowers. You see, in order for a bank to make money, they need to have depositors and borrowers.

The third step is for the bank to solicit depositors and how do they do that? They generally do that by enticing you, by offering a higher interest rate on savings accounts and CDs to get you to deposit money with them. Most people are depositors and borrowers from the bank and understand banks can’t make money if they only have depositors and they can’t lend money if they only have borrowers, so they need both depositors and borrowers.

The bottom line is, banks make sure that money is always flowing. The same laws apply in nature. Water has to flow or else it stagnates, and you can’t drink it. Water has to flow through the body or else you die. Blood has to flow through the body, or you die. The same laws apply to money. It needs to continuously flow. Just think of all the ways that we make our money stagnate. We put money in retirement accounts, and we don’t touch it for 30 or 40 years. We pay off our house early and we have this huge amount of our wealth tied up in real estate that we really can’t access without getting permission.

Make no mistake, although we park our money at banks, they don’t let it sit there. They follow the same laws as nature, and they keep that money flowing. They keep that money flowing by using a basic business concept called, inventory turnover. Every business owner knows that, the faster they turn over their inventory, the more profits they make. It’s the same thing for a banking model. The only difference is their inventory is depositors’ money. So, let’s take a look at a real-life practical example of how banks make money. In 2016, Bank of America had $860 billion worth of deposits. Based upon that, they paid $1.9 billion to the depositors. Wow, that’s a lot of money to pay the depositor, but it’s nothing compared to what they earned in interest from borrowers. They earned $44.8 billion from things like mortgages, home equity, loans, fees, business and personal loans. That’s over $42 billion more than they paid out in interest to depositors. Bank of America had no skin in the game. They loaned borrowers, depositors’ money. The only risk they had was to pay the depositors $1.9 billion. By keeping money flowing, they were able to generate $44.8 billion in revenue.That’s why it’s important to keep money flowing, and that’s why it’s important to own the banking process.

Now that we know the benefits of owning the banking function in your life, let’s get started and look at the rules. My mentor Nelson Nash had four basic rules. Number one, think long-term. Number two, don’t be afraid to capitalize. Number three, don’t steal the piece. What did he mean by that? Basically, what he meant was if the insurance company is charging you interest, pay yourself more than that amount of interest. Your money is worth more than Bank of America’s or anybody else’s. The fourth rule was, don’t deal with banks if you don’t have to.

Now that we understand how banks operate and the basic rules for the infinite banking concept, let’s take a look at how we help our clients regain control of their money using the infinite banking concept. The first step is to identify where they’re actually giving up control of their money. We look at places like their mortgages, taxes, how they’re funding retirement plans, how they plan on funding college tuition for their children, and how they’re funding major capital purchases. Step two is really easy. They just agree to stop doing those things where they’re giving up control of their money so that they can go to step three. Which is to capitalize their policy, capitalize their bank. This leads them to step four, where they’re actually borrowing against their own cash value and paying interest back to an entity that they own and control so that they can control the process and make the profits.

Middle Class Family

Meet George and Beth: A Middle Class Family With No Way to Pay for Their Children’s College

Meet George and Beth: A Middle Class Family With No Way to Pay for Their Children’s College

George and Beth purchased a lovely home in a safe and quiet neighborhood shortly after they wed.  As a two family income, both worked 9 to 5 jobs and made a decent living.  This afforded them the opportunity to live within their means and save to start a family.  Their bills were covered, they were able to pay down their debts, and they were even able to put away money for retirement.

After having their first child, the two remained steadfast in saving for retirement as well as beefing up their rainy day fund.   Once their second child was born the family still continued to put away savings and afford their lifestyle without compromise.

They dreamed of a cabin in the mountains after retirement.  A nice quiet place to relax after working hard for their whole lives.  Beth longed to sit in front of a big window to read with a warm cup of tea, while George was hoping for a lot of acreage and big porch to enjoy it from.  They were on track with their retirement savings to be able to start building their cabin – after their kids were grown up and moved away, in about 15 years.

 

By conventional standards, George and Beth were living the dream and doing everything right financially.

As they approached their late 30’s, the couple began to see that even though their salaries were continuing to increase, it wasn’t keeping up with the increasing costs of their family. Sitting at the dinner table, bills and statements scattered about, the two faced a big dilemma.  Their current financial situation wasn’t as bright as they had hoped.

With their first born turning 11, they had begun to think about the cost of a college education.  Luckily, the couple started to look at a way to save for their kid’s education before it was too late – but even with 7 years to put money away, at their current level of income, it wasn’t possible to save enough cash to cover the classes for their first child, let alone a degree for the second.

Tapping her fingers on a calculator, Beth hung her head.  “Even if we stop saving for our retirement, there won’t be enough to cover the college tuition for the kids,” she said.  George felt sadness seep into his strong and stoic expression.  He felt like he couldn’t provide for his family, even though he had a college education and a good paying job.  The two held each other’s hands, unsure where to go from there.

 

The following day, Beth began to find other ways to get out of debt and save for retirement.

After searching all day, Beth scheduled a few consult appointments with “experts” at how to get out of the situation her family was in.  The first 3 appointments didn’t prove to be worth the time or effort, but the fourth appointment left Beth and George much more hopeful than that night at the kitchen table.

As they sat in the office at Tier 1 Capital, the man behind the desk said, “If you could send your children to college, save for retirement, and begin building your retirement home several years sooner, would you do it?”  “Absolutely?” replied George, preparing for another plan that was obviously too good to be true.  “Good. Let’s get a plan together,” said the man.

 

 

The plan was about redirecting money the couple was losing unknowingly and unnecessarily into a cash pool they could access when they needed it.

After an evaluation the couple found they were giving money away in various places, including with interest on their debt.  They also were surprised to learn that they didn’t have to pay banks for the privilege of using their money and that taking control of their money could increase their cash flow and easily accomplish all of their goals.

 

Elated and a bit skeptical, the couple agreed to create and implement a plan that would:

  1. Enable them to pay for both kid’s college educations
  2. Continue to live at the lifestyle they were accustomed to
  3. Have enough saved for retirement so that they may live comfortably
  4. Build a cabin in the woods for their retirement NOW

 

The plan they enacted worked by redirecting their cash flow and gave them access to money they were willfully making inaccessible.  Traditional tactics keep money inaccessible in times when it’s needed – even when it’s your money.  Beth and George felt privileged to finally learn there was a better way.  A way that would keep their money at their fingertips for when they really needed it, without extra taxes and penalties.

Using a cash pool created with their own money, Beth and George were able accelerate the payments on their mortgage, while saving for retirement and having the comfort of knowing that college tuition also wouldn’t be a problem for them to afford.   As they used their funds to build up their cash pool and aggressively pay down their debts, the two did not sacrifice saving for retirement.  In fact, it was just the opposite.

2 years after implementing their plan, the couple began construction on their cabin in the woods.  Something they thought they wouldn’t have been able to afford for another 15 years.  A few years after the cabin was built, their first son went off to college.  When the $60,000 per year tuition bill arrived, George and Beth cut the check without a worry about dipping into savings or retirement.  Later, they overheard their friends, who had always had higher paying jobs than them, lament over taking away from their retirement accounts to pay for their kid’s college education.

 

Today – Beth and George are pleased they found a better way to handle their long term finances.

As George sits on the front porch of their cabin discussing college choices with their second child, he smiles and says, “Cost isn’t a concern, choose which education you feel like will best serve you.”  He looks down at the boards that his father helped him nail there under their feet and was filled with gratitude.  His father, who recently passed, was able to help him build this cabin because he was able to afford to build it sooner – and finally he could provide for his family without question.

Tier 1 Capital knows there is another way to save for retirement – a system that pays you.

Using plans designed for heavy cash accumulation, Tier 1 will help you find where you are giving your cash away and teach you how to keep that cash at the tips of your fingers.

Our method creates a “pool of cash” that can be used to finance a home purchase, a business venture or a lifestyle through retirement. Using permanent life insurance, that pays dividends, you’ll be able to capitalize on privatized infinite banking. Using available savings and cash flow to build your own private bank can help you recover the funds you’ve “lost” paying interest to financial institutions.

It isn’t good to be true. It’s an effective solution to retirement savings and debt accumulation.

Tier 1 was founded out of the frustration we all experience with trying to get ahead.  Our founder spent nearly a decade in financial services doing things the conventional way.  Paying down his debts and maxing out his 401K every year didn’t get him anywhere when he needed the funds to buy his first home.

Furious with the system, he began to find additional ways to secure his financial future.  Since 1993, he’s used this method to help small business owners and families save for retirement while simultaneously having access to those assets to purchase a home, a car or send their kid to college.