Financial strategies
Elevate your financial game with a comprehensive wealth strategy that covers all the bases
Discover Strategies Essential for a Robust Financial Plan
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In the world of finance, certain concepts hold the key to shaping your journey. Uncover the significance of these concepts and strategies and their impact on your overall plan. Explore the vital pillars that ultimately shape your financial landscape–from achieving balance to mastering the art of saving and spending, understanding qualified accounts to navigating the influence of market volatility on returns, and delving into the critical sequence of returns.
Financial Balance summarized
Master Financial Balance:
Navigate market risks, safeguard your wealth, and achieve financial stability regardless of changing tax laws.
For those seeking a quick overview, this summary highlights key financial strategies. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to start a conversation with me here.
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Lost Opportunity on Money: Money spent loses the opportunity to earn compounded interest. Whole life insurance contracts allow your money to earn that compounded return, leveraging it for maximum potential.
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Financing vs. Paying Cash: Financing using an insurance contract preserves the potential for compounding, making your money work for you. Consider the cost and opportunity cost associated with cash purchases.
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Balance and Tax Laws: Maintain balance in your financial plan to reduce risk. Whole life insurance operates under contract law, providing stability unaffected by frequent changes in tax laws.
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Market Risks and Volatility: Brokerage accounts are exposed to market risks and volatility that significantly impacts portfolio performance. Diversify with whole life insurance for stability and protection against market fluctuations.
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Debtors, Savers, and Wealth Creators: Different approaches to purchases involve fundamental principles. Wealth creators leverage borrowed funds, continuing to earn compound interest on core capital.
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Qualified Plans and Fees: Tax-advantaged plans like IRAs and 401(k)s come with fees and restrictions, including penalties for early withdrawals. Capital is largely trapped without access.
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Mitigating Sequence of Returns Risk: Negative market returns during retirement can be devastating, especially if early in retirement. Utilizing cash value in a life insurance contract as a temporary retirement funding solution can mitigate risks and allow your qualified account to last longer.
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Continue on if you would like to learn more or contact me to start a conversation
Financial Balance
Embrace Balance: Fortify Your Financial Strategy by Combining the Stability of Whole Life Insurance into Your Financial Plan
Balance is an essential element of any robust financial plan as it helps reduce risk. When it comes to your brokerage accounts, they are governed by tax law, making them susceptible to frequent changes that occur with shifts in administrations. The old adage “elections have consequences” couldn’t be truer when it comes to tax law! On the other hand, whole life insurance operates under a contract between you and a private insurance company, guided by contract law. The long-established precedence of contract law spans hundreds of years, predating the tax code.
It is important to recognize that your brokerage assets are exposed to market risks and volatility, both of which can have adverse effects on your overall wealth. To develop a sound financial strategy, it is crucial to maintain balance across different financial instruments, mitigating potential risks. By diversifying and incorporating whole life insurance into your plan, you can enhance stability and reduce vulnerability to market fluctuations while adding protection.
Lost oppportunity
Lost opportunity on money is the untapped potential of each dollar spent, contrasting with the returns it could generate when strategically invested. By placing money into a dividend-paying Whole Life Insurance contract and leveraging it through borrowed funds, your money can work twice – a game-changing wealth-building strategy.
Lost opportunity on money refers to the potential growth and earnings that are relinquished when a dollar is spent rather than being strategically invested. Essentially, it's the concept that every dollar has the potential to work for you and generate returns, but when it's spent outright, it loses the opportunity to accumulate compounded interest over time.
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Consider this: when a dollar is spent, it's gone, and you lose the ability to harness the power of compounding. However, if you place that dollar into an environment where it can earn a compounded rate of return indefinitely, such as in a participating dividend paying Whole Life Insurance contract, and then use that dollar as collateral to access borrowed funds (from the insurance company) for purchases, you're effectively leveraging your money to maximize its potential. Some might even say your money is working twice for you, especially if you borrowed that money to make an investment in an asset like real estate, or a business.
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Paying cash for items, while seemingly prudent on the surface, can undermine your long-term wealth-building prospects.
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Imagine starting with an initial $10,000 and letting it grow at a compounded rate of 4.5% for 30 years, which would result in its value reaching $24,117. Now, envision adding an extra $10,000 to that amount every year. Over the same 30-year period, this consistent addition would lead to an impressive total of $644,497. What kind of cash flows through your personal financial landscape? Once you've grasped the genuine cost of using cash for purchases, it becomes nearly impossible to overlook the unmatched potential that lies in utilizing these financial strategies.
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In essence, the idea is to make your money work for you at all times. By preserving your capital and using it strategically within a financial instrument, like the PUA Rider of an insurance contract, you're not only retaining the potential for compounding interest but also positioning yourself to access funds for purchases without disrupting the growth trajectory. This approach seeks to strike a balance between utilizing your funds wisely and making sure they continue to work for you over the long haul.
HOW WE SAVE AND MAKE PURCHASES
Unveiling the Underlying Principles: Every Purchase Reflects a Choice Between Interest Paid or Interest Earned, Defining the Path to Wealth Creation.
Everything we purchase is financed in one way or another. We either pay interest or forfeit the opportunity to earn interest. It is essential to consider not only the cost of an item but also the opportunity cost associated with how we pay for it. In essence, there are three types of individuals: debtors, savers, and wealth creators. Although debtors and savers engage in transactions that seem opposite, they ultimately involve the same fundamental principles when looked at more closely.
In the context of wealth creation, it is essential to understand how different individuals approach their purchases. Let's explore three scenarios: The Debtor, The Saver, and The Wealth Creator
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The Debtor (above): This individual makes a purchase using a financial institution and pays it off over a specified timeframe - 5 years in this example.
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The Saver (above): The saver chooses to save first, 5 years in this example, before making the purchase. Once the purchase is made they forfeit the opportunity to earn interest on their money from that day forward.
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The Wealth Creator (above): The wealth creator takes a different approach by borrowing from a selected lender, such as a Mutual Insurance Company, using their cash value as collateral. By doing this, they continue to earn uninterrupted compound interest for the remainder of their life. As a wealth creator, all lost opportunities on their money are recaptured indefinitely, as they leverage other people's money rather than their own.
Qualified Money
Beware the Hidden Costs and Limitations of Qualified Plans: Unlocking Tax Advantages Comes with Market Risk, Unseen Fees and Age-Related Penalties
We have various financial instruments available to us that offer tax advantages, such as IRA's, Roth IRA's, 403b’s and 401(k) plans. However, it is important to recognize that these vehicles come with a range of fees, some of which are disclosed and many are not. These fees can have a significant impact on your lifetime earnings.
One notable drawback of qualified plans is the restrictions they impose. Your funds are subject to penalties between the ages of 18 and 59-1/2, as well as again from 70-1/2 when required minimum distributions come into play. Qualified plans have numerous limitations on the use of your funds, and early withdrawals before retirement age result in penalties. With qualified plans you give up use and control of your money.
Additionally, your money is exposed to market risks and the volatility of market fluctuations. With qualified plans, there are no guarantees. It is prudent to safeguard against sequence risk when utilizing qualified accounts.
VOLATILITY
Unmasking the Impact of Volatility: Traditional Calculating of Averages Can Conceal True Returns, Underlining the Crucial Role of Volatility in Financial Decision-Making.
The impact of market return volatility is significant on your portfolio. Wall Street will have you believe that the method of calculating an average return is simply summing the returns and dividing by the period, the arithmetic return. No doubt that this works for consistent returns like 10% per year, every year. It falls short for the reality of real market returns.
Let's examine a volatile return like -10%, +30%, -10%, +30%, -10%, +30%, -10%, +30%, -10%, +30% over a 10 year period. Even though the sum of returns equals 100, the actual average return isn't the 10% you're led to believe, it's 8.71%. This is the geometric mean, and is the preferred method.
Imagine a 1MM account in this scenario, the 10% versus 8.71% return results in an account balance difference of 400K! Volatility greatly influences return profiles and should be a key consideration in financial decisions.
Sequence of Return Risk
Shield Your Retirement from Market Turbulence: Harness the Power of Tactical Financial Solutions
Consider that the average American's retirement plan primarily consists of qualified plan funds, which heavily rely on a favorable sequence of market returns to remain viable during retirement drawdowns or RMD’s. However, if individuals encounter a negative series of returns, particularly in the early stages of retirement, the consequences can be devastating.
When market conditions contract, there is a heightened impact on your investments, particularly before reaching the age of 70-1/2 when required minimum distributions (RMDs) come into play. Withdrawing from your retirement account during market downturns can exacerbate losses. To mitigate the risks associated with sequence of returns, one effective strategy is to utilize the cash value in a life insurance contract as a temporary retirement funding solution. Borrowing rather than distributing allows your retirement account to recover in line with market conditions.
This strategy allows your qualified account to recuperate when market conditions improve. Once the account has recovered, the borrowed amount can be repaid to your policy, replenishing the cash value for future use. I have extensively modeled this strategy and can provide you with precise illustrations showcasing how it can mean the difference between a sustainable or a declining retirement account, especially in extreme market conditions.