If you had a choice, would you choose to: A) live wealthy today, or B) live wealthy 20 to 30 years down the road?
It’s a serious question. Because many people are pressured into choosing option B when they absolutely don’t have to. Living wealthy now is a choice.
But sometimes it feels like the whole world is conspiring to keep people from living wealthy today. “Do you know how much money you need to retire?” they ask. “Are you on track with your savings goals?” they ask.
This is the accumulation game. It’s based on the faulty idea that you can shrink your way to wealth. If you just cut back on lattes and cook all your meals at home, you’ll save more money. And eventually, 30 years down the road when you retire, you can live off your savings (at a fraction of your current lifestyle). This is definitely not how the world’s wealthiest families did it.
I used to play this game. And on the rare occasions that I’d take my wife to dinner, I’d pester her with scarcity thinking. I’d tell her, “No, honey. You can’t have that glass of wine,” as I pulled out a calculator. Then I’d say to her in all seriousness, “$10, after 30 years of compounding interest at 10%, is $198.37. Do you really want to pay $200 for that glass of wine?”
That’s how retirement planners want you to think about saving, because they want your money, they want it now and they want it for 30 years or more.
It’s the perfect recipe for delaying wealth until some day decades down the line (if ever). Fortunately, my entrepreneurial-side helped me finally see through the charade. I call it “The Entrepreneur’s Advantage,” although you don’t have to be an entrepreneur to capitalize on it.
Entrepreneurs have an instinctual understanding of cash flow. It’s the lifeblood of our business. The #1 most important thing is to make sure you have positive cash flow — i.e. more money flowing in than flowing out.
We don’t want to save a pile of money to spend down in retirement (hoping to die before it runs out), because that’s the definition of insolvency.
The entrepreneur’s advantage tells us to focus on positive cash flow and growing wealthier each month, because that’s the secret to living wealthy today and tomorrow.
Then, over the long term, the key is to keep the cash flow flowing in retirement.
For business owners, this means working to retire in your business, rather than from your business. Set up systems, hire well, and delegate until your business runs without you. Then you can work when you want to, and the cash flow keeps rolling in.
For investors, that means investing for cash flow — such as real estate investing or annuities like an SPIA.
Once I understood that the key to living wealthy today is positive cash flow — and to keep that money in motion — then I could tell my wife to get that glass of wine. Now we eat out whenever we like. We love going to live performances and concerts. In fact, if you saw what we spend on entertainment, you might think we’re crazy. But it’s what we value and it’s how we live wealthy today.
You can start living wealthy today, too. I’ll teach you right now.
Set up recurring automatic transfers to “sweep” 15% of your income into a separate savings account. We’ll call it your Wealth Capture account. Make the transfer automatically occur whenever money is regularly deposited — most often it will be the days of the month your paycheck is deposited (if that’s how you get paid).
Then the rest of your money is yours to spend as you please. Your bills come first, of course. But then there’s wine at dinner. Concerts. Travel. Cars. Whatever you desire, because living wealthy is about your personal taste.
If spending 15% of your income sounds impossible, you’re probably wrong. Our Cash Flow Banking system helps people find that 15% by getting efficient with their finances (rather than cutting back). They pay less tax, less interest, less fees and get rid of things like duplicate insurance coverage payments. If all that doesn’t get you to 15%, then you can start with a lower percentage of your income and grow from there. The key is to choose a percentage and stick to it.
Now you’re growing wealthier each month. But you don’t want to let the money sit stagnant.
You want to be like the Amazon River, flowing and full of life. Not like the Dead Sea, which sits stagnant and is full of death (only microbes live there).
Our Cash Flow Banking System utilizes financial technology favored by the Rockefeller family to grow your wealth tax-free at 4-5% per year, guaranteed. But the money you put in this account doesn’t have to sit idle like it does when you invest in a mutual fund. It’s a tool that can be leveraged.
You can borrow against the cash value of your account, giving you access to an identical account balance to put into motion. That money can be invested in a business or another cash flow investment, and now you have two streams of cash flow flowing in.
This process can be repeated over and over. Your money is constantly in motion. And because you’ve set up that sweep account to automatically grow wealthier each month, you can live wealthy today without guilt.
That is the way to live wealthy today and tomorrow — and to create a lasting financial legacy for your family.
We’ve created a mini-course to show how the Rockefeller’s use this financial technology to grow their family’s wealth. To find out more, you can sign up for free right here: How to Set Up Your Financial Future Like the Rockefellers.
