I have one simple question for you: what do you need in order to retire?
From the day you started working you’ve heard the word “retirement” spoken by those around you, usually with a sense of reverence and hope, as if it’s some mythical Promised Land that they’ve heard about and can envision yet seems so far out of reach.
So what does the typical American do to prepare to enter the Promised Land of retirement? For most it consists of doing what the “gurus” tell them to do:
- Contribute to a 401k
- Make extra payments on the mortgage to pay it off before age 65
- Chase high rates of return to make up for lost time
- Put money away in a savings account for a rainy day
- “Pay cash” for everything
- Save $5/day by avoiding Starbucks
- Invest in mutual funds
- Give your money to a “professional” who can grow it for you
And the list goes on and on and on…
What if there was only ONE thing you needed to do to prepare for retirement? Forget the list of 50 different things that you “must do!” to get there. What if you focused on the single MOST IMPORTANT thing?
To figure out what that ONE thing is, let me ask you this question again: What do you need in order to retire?
No, it’s not “pay off all my debt, save 2 million dollars in my IRA, own my house free and clear” and so on.
It’s a SINGLE solitary thing:
INCOME
That is ALL you need in order to retire! INCOME. And it’s the ONLY thing you can’t do without.
After all, what is the end goal of building up your IRA or 401k? So that it can create an INCOME for you to live off of after you stop working for a living. Right?
And what is the purpose of paying off your mortgage? To free up INCOME that you can use to live off of after you stop working (are you seeing where I am going with this?).
Unfortunately nobody ever tells us this! Why? Either they don’t know it themselves or it doesn’t fit their narrative. All the complicated ‘stuff’ can be boiled down into a single goal:
Use your working capital today to create a PASSIVE INCOME for you that will replace your ACTIVE INCOME.
And once that passive income exceeds your active income, then YOU CAN RETIRE!
You don’t have to wait until some arbitrary age like 65 (which came about when social security was created in 1935 and the average life expectancy at the time was only ~60 years!).
You can start generating an income today. But to do that requires changing the way you think about money. Fortunately, because you have already created a financial strategy that uses dividend-paying whole life insurance, you have already begun to change the way you think. But don’t stop there.
There are plenty of places you can place your capital today that will start generating an income for you next month. And by adding just a little more every year (or a lot more if you want to retire sooner), you can grow your passive income by a little more every year. And before you know it, you could have enough passive income coming in to cover all of your expenses.
(Of course, this assumes you’ve conquered Parkinson’s Law and don’t allow your expenses to rise to the level of your income as it increases. But you will need to conquer that Law regardless of what financial strategy you use if you want to create financial security and freedom)
So don’t get caught up in all the different things the guru’s say you must be doing in order to retire at 65—just start shifting your focus to a single, solitary goal:
Create an INCOME
I’m doing it. Many of my clients are doing it and learning how to do it. And our passive income has increased this year even though the market has tanked (down over 16% YTD as of this writing). I’m happy to share some of the methods we are using to create an income today, just schedule some time and let’s talk!
Cheers,
David Befort
Host of the Wealth Warehouse podcast
