In this episode, I uncover the real financial cost of settling for “good enough” instead of the best. Whether it’s insurance policies, investments, or financial advice, small decisions can cost you thousands or even hundreds of thousands over time.
I share real client stories to highlight the opportunity cost of poor decisions and why focusing on value over price is the key to building wealth, creating freedom, and leaving a legacy.
Key Takeaways:
- Opportunity Cost is Real: Settling for “good enough” can cost you years of financial progress.
- Focus on Value, Not Price: The cheapest option can cost you the most in lost time and money.
- Time is Irreplaceable: Your time is more valuable than money, so use it wisely.
- Beware of Bad Advice: Always verify, compare, and work with people who have a proven track record of delivering the best value.
TRANSCRIPTS
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you ever wondered if there’s a real financial cost to not getting the very best product or the best service? That’s one I want to talk about today. What is that cost and what does it mean for you and your financial freedom? Tune in and find out what that really is. Hello, my fellow Rippers. This is Chris Miles, your cashflow expert at Anti Financianal Advisor. This show is for you. Those that work so hard for your money, you’re now ready for your money to start working harder for you today. You want that freedom and cashflow right now, not 30 or 40 years, or 30 or 40 decades or centuries from now, or lifetimes from now, but you want it today so you can live that life that you love with those that you love. But most importantly, it’s not just about helping you get rich, although that’s an awesome byproduct, but it’s about living a rich life because as you’re blessed financially, you now have a greater capacity to bless the lives of those around you.
(01:02)
Thank you for tuning in today, guys. I appreciate you sharing this podcast with others. You’ve been helping this grow even just organically. We don’t put any advertising into this podcast at all, and you guys are the reason why we’re one of the top financial podcast in the world, and that’s all because of the youth. Thank you so much for doing so. Hey guys, if you haven’t done so already, please go ahead and like and subscribe. Of course, if you’re on YouTube, if you haven’t gone to our Money Ripples channel, please do so. Also love it if you guys could leave a review if you’re listening on iTunes or whatever it might be. So appreciate any help you can give us there. Alright, so why don’t I talk about something. I want to share some stories here because I’ve actually had three experiences with clients just in the last week.
(01:44)
One was with one of our guys, and this is ironically all in the space of infinite banking. Now, I’m sure this goes outside of that as well, for those that are doing passive investing or haven’t done passive investing. The one thing is we always know is that yes, making money is awesome, losing money is not awesome. But what’s even worse is when you lose time because that’s the one thing you can never, ever, ever get back, right? And that’s what you talk about. Opportunity cost. What is this? Because I’ll tell you, even when as a financial advisor, opportunity cost is not something I really factored in when I was learning about opportunity costs. It was always about, it was like, okay, well just you got to take advantage of that opportunity and if you don’t, then you lose it. But what I didn’t understand was that speed is everything.
(02:29)
It’s always about speed, and most importantly, it’s about what could you be doing with your time, your money, your talents, your resources, what could you be applying it to in one arena versus another? And sometimes people get this. I mean, for example, if you let your money just sit in a savings account and sit there forever making point, nothing percent at your bank, or even if you have a high yield savings account and maybe make three, 4% a year, but then you get taxed on three or 4% a year. By the way, if you haven’t looked at your interest rate on your savings accounts, look again, if you haven’t looked in the last couple months, they have come down. So anyways, unless you’re already getting paid nothing, then obviously it can’t go much lower. But that’s a good example because if that money could be making say 10, 11, 12% a year versus sitting there making less than one or a couple percent a year and then you get taxed on it, you can do better.
(03:19)
There’s definitely an opportunity cost to that. That’s the thing guys, is that you can never get your time back and you don’t even know how long you have left on this planet. We talk about this on the show all the time. We, I mean, I bring this up a lot, but think about it, that time is everything. I’m going to start with a story that’s kind of unrelated, but it is related at the same time. But I’ve mentioned, I had a client just a few years ago, I had a couple clients pass away just last year, and that client, I’ll tell you, he was 39 years old, a dentist living what seemed like from the outside an amazing life. It seemed like he was healthy, everything was going well. Yeah, he had some stresses in the practice, but no one, I don’t think anybody would’ve predicted that at 39 he would pass away and then that would be it.
(04:08)
How lucky was he that he actually took action years prior to create passive income for his family, create a little bit of that freedom? No, he wasn’t quite at the point where he was able to sell his practice and get out of it and spend more time with his family, but I know that extra money allowed him to have at least some time with his family for the time that he did have. And so I’m very grateful for that. And that’s one of the big reasons why we keep coming on this show, pounding this into your brains about why passive income is so important and why you need to be a wise steward of your money. Because if you’re not a wise steward of your money, who will be, no one should care about your money more than you. And that includes financial advisors, that’s even truth, insurance agents and everything else.
(04:50)
And so I’ll give you an example here because just like I said in the last week, there was three scenarios. All of these were infinite banking clients or ones that were looking into infinite banking. One of ’em came from a guy on my team. He said, Hey, this person, funny enough, I don’t know why he did a policy us and then he decided he wanted to diversify by looking at other agents and try to maybe do another company. But the problem was it was literally going to cost him $300,000 over the next 20 years by going with that option. He wanted to be diversified, apples to apples, same amount of money, but we would have $300,000 more doing our plan versus theirs. And see, I’m all about someone wanting to diversify. Of course, not trying to put all their eggs in one basket. Yeah, I put a lot of my money into one particular company because it’s the best right now.
(05:38)
But as things change and move around and things like that, I’m willing to switch companies, which I’ve done over time. I’ve used different companies for different situations. And that’s the thing is we’re independently brokered If maybe they didn’t understand that because if they would have, why wouldn’t they just looked? And there’s different reasons because I had another client who’s a client I’ve had for 15 years, and then he reached out to me last week. He says, Chris, I didn’t expect this to happen, but I found out I’m signed up for a policy and I don’t think it’s very good. And he sends it to me and I realized it’s like a universal life policy and universal life is not the worst thing in the world, but the way it was designed was not good at all. In fact, he was paying in for four years in a row, and guess how much cash he would be able to access?
(06:23)
Zero, zero cash. Here’s the crazy thing, guys. He was looking into this. He said, well, this guy was kind of a contributor to some of the projects we did. So I was kind of like letting him kind of throw his hat in the ring, right? He said, Hey, let me show you what you could do. So he does that. But what my client didn’t understand was that he was actually signing up for the policy. He thought he was just getting a quote because the guy said he’ll send numbers afterwards, but guess what? The numbers came afterwards, after because he probably submitted a voided check afterwards. There’s the policy and he’s having money being drafted out of his account, not knowing of course, that this guy was already signing him up for a plan. Now, this is one reason why we just make it a rule.
(07:03)
We never take people’s voided checks, even though some people will say, well, you should do that because while you’re applying, if something happens to you, then you’ll know you’ll at least get covered by insurance if they don’t deny you later on. But if you die in the meantime while you’re getting this policy, you’re covered. Guys, I don’t believe in that. I believe that you should have choice and options to be able to make good informed decisions. And so I stopped doing that practice over 20 years ago when I was the traditional financial advisor. And instead just encourage people that said, Hey, let’s put it in the insurance company. Let’s let them give you the offer. Let’s see what they offer you. Almost like getting an appraisal on your house, it’s getting an appraisal on your life and seeing what they offer and make sure it matches up.
(07:42)
In many, many cases, we get people coming back. It’s like, this is exactly what we were hoping for, exactly the numbers we’re hoping for. It’s perfect. Sometimes in other situations, maybe not so much. So that’s where you got to really be careful because sometimes there are deceptive methods. Some people will tell you they’ll never send you the numbers until after you get approved for the policy. That’s what happened with my dear friend and client of so many years, is that this guy duped him by saying, Hey, well once you apply for this policy, then we’ll know the exact numbers. Then we’ll have a rating that comes back. Yeah, I get that. But what he did instead was he’s like, well, here put in a voided check. And of course what happens he’s in now, he could have read the contract, he would’ve known he’s probably in it, but verbally, this guy was not telling him he’s signing up for a policy verbally.
(08:28)
This guy was just saying, Hey, let’s just see what you get. But instead, he was using a little bait and switch to get him into that plan. So now we’re trying to undo it because this guy put in a decent amount of money into this plan. They didn’t realize it was coming out of his account and now he’s trying to unravel it. I told him he does have a free look, period. If you happen to get a policy in the last 30 days typically, and you’re like, wait, wait, this is not what I want. You can usually ask to get your money back. You can get all of it back, even if there’s surrender fees if you go a lot of those horrible universal life plans and things like that. So anyways, that’s something that you got to be very careful of. That’s again, a cost of money.
(09:05)
He could have also come to me and said, Hey Chris, while I’m having this guy look at numbers, can you do it as well? And I would probably say give him the benefit of doubt. He was probably hoping to give those numbers back to then compare with what we had, but that wasn’t the case, which is why he came back later saying, I got the numbers back, and by the way, I just realized money was drafted on my account. So that’s a whole other can of worms there. But guess what? It wasn’t just these two guys within just a few days of each other. The next day I had somebody else come to me and say, Chris, I just got quoted for doing policies on my kids. I don’t think this doesn’t look very good to me. It takes me 13, 14 years to break even on my costs.
(09:45)
Meaning that whatever he put into the plan, he would then have in that what tax free savings account, that cash value. And he was talking about putting in 4,000 a year. So you do the math, that means he’s putting in roughly 50 plus thousand dollars before he finally has $50,000. And so I look at the plan, and this is on his children. By the way, if you’ve been following this podcast, you’re probably looking for great ways to create passive income right now. Well, we got you covered here with central lending. Central lending specialized in alternative investments that actually are designed to create steady returns and long-term financial security for you and your family. Now, they prioritize transparency. They love building those strong relationships, giving you that confidence, peace of mind knowing that you have your money working harder for you so you don’t have to work so hard for that money.
(10:28)
You want to learn more how to do that, go to central lending.com and check out what they’ve got today to create your passive income and wealth creation right now. So I do apples to apples and what do we find out? That first tier, he puts in $4,000. He has just under 2000 bucks in there. In my plan, he does the same thing. It has just under 3,500 bucks. So it’s $1,500 cheaper on the fees, which allows him to have 1500 more of returns on his plan. So that means he puts in 4,000 bucks, has just under 3,500 bucks in there that his kid can use or he can use for his child versus losing over half of it to fees from day one. Now, that’s not the worst plan I’ve seen, but the sad thing is that even after 10 years, he pays in 40,000 and he’s looking at saying, wait a minute, I’ve got less than 30,000.
(11:15)
I got 29,000 in here after putting in 40,000 on mine. He has 47,020 years. He puts in 80,000, he’s got 95,000. He finally has a little bit more in that other plan, but in ours, he’s got about $130,000. So he’s got almost $35,000 more in our plan after 20 years than the other plan. That guy, that means he’s averaging overpaying nearly $2,000 a year. What does that cost you? Think about that, that extra 35,000, say even just 20 years, right? That $35,000, do you know what you could do without money? You could create more money with it. And this is just a tiny amount he’s putting in just to his kid’s plan. This is more money that he would have available for college for his kid when he gets there about what they would have. They would have more money for college if they want to use for college, if this kid doesn’t go to college, if they want to start a business or start out new in their life, they got tens of thousands dollars more in cash they can use to maybe start ’em out with buying a home because as you’ve guys have seen, it’s getting harder and harder to buy a new home.
(12:13)
What if you get your kids get to that point where they don’t have the money to be able to do that? What if you can give them an extra leg up by saying, you know what? You don’t even know about this, but I actually had a savings plan for you. Merry Christmas, happy New Year, whatever you want to say, happy wedding, whatever it might be. Here you go. I’m going to give this money to you guys. That’s the power of creating a legacy. Now, we talk about living your life now, not tomorrow. That requires you to do things that are best for you right now. This is just like there’s been several times I’ve gone and bought technology. Maybe I’ve bought a new computer and I’m saying this because I’m in the process of buying a new computer so I can have better quality videos for you guys.
(12:53)
And the thing is, I just bought one a few years ago and now what do I have to do? I have to upgrade again. Well, okay, sure. And that computer wasn’t even necessarily cheap. It wasn’t the most expensive, but it wasn’t the cheapest either. What if I just bought the best one from the get-go? Could I have it last more years, guys, this quality over just buying stuff, isn’t it? It’s about how do you get the best quality? Now, I get it, you might be racking your brain, especially for some of those of you that start thinking deeper like I would, which is okay, yeah. But Chris, how do I know I get the best? How do I know I always have the best? Because there’s always going to be opportunity costs. There’s always going to be a better opportunity, and you’re absolutely correct. In fact, I’ll tell you that action is still better than inaction.
(13:37)
However you can compare, you can look at results, and again, you have people you can ask around you, where are the best scenarios? I love the fact I have several people that have been clients of ours saying, Hey, Chris, my accountant told me about this tax saving strategy. What do you think? And I look at it and say, Ooh, I dunno if I would touch that with a 10 foot pole for one. Oh, and by the way, the person that recommended it is somebody else I know that doesn’t have a great reputation. That just is known for selling people crap and not giving good advice. So if they’re offering that, and I’m not saying throw the baby out with the bath water, but if somebody tends to have a pretty bad reputation for giving credit advice, you may not want to take it. Or at least he did the right thing.
(14:17)
He was trying to verify and get multiple opinions, but I just said, Hey, I know you want tax savings. This is not it. And the same thing with infinite banking. The only reason we do anything in business, the only reason we only do two things, we only do max ROI, infinite banking, which is our method. And then two is doing really the passive income consulting, like helping you create a passive income game plan to get you to the point where you’re financially independent, where you are work optional. You work because you want to, not because you have to, and we only do those two things because I believe that in business you should only do something if you’re the, and I’ve had somebody say, well, Chris, not everybody’s going to be the best, especially from day one, and I agree with that, but you can get pretty darn close, right?
(14:59)
Because I’ll tell you the reason I took over even infinite banking inside the company in 2017 and brought it internally versus referring it out to even some of my best friends. The reason I did that is because I realized I could do better than what they were offering. Now, they were really good. I would put them in the good category, but they weren’t great or the best necessarily. They were doing a good job and they wouldn’t even be borderline great. I’m just not again the best. And when I realized that, I said, well, why would I keep referring my clients over when I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable to tell them You have the best? Because the truth is, I want the best and I hope you want the best for you, and not just for you, but for your family because all this matters. Just imagine this guy who’s just trying to set this plan for his one-year-old son.
(15:47)
He sent up this plan and in 20 years when he’s 21 years old in college, he could have 35,000 more dollars doing nothing else other than just getting his money to work better. And guys that’s only with 80,000 bucks, 80,000 and still could make $35,000 more than the other alternative. He was looking at his biggest cost to him. The biggest risk he would do is to go ahead and just do it because that person might be a friend or that person is just somebody you thought, well, maybe I should diversify into other places or whatever, or other people. Hey guys, if I could give you full confidence that you could go with somebody else and get the best work every time, guess what? I would send you that way? I would send you that way. And because I have an insurance license, I can always split the referral fee.
(16:36)
I can always split the commissions. That’s the thing in business that again, if you’re a business owner, maybe you get this, but if you can refer to somebody who does a better job and get paid for it, and you don’t have to deliver on that, that’s a way better scenario. And maybe this is kind of expanding mind for somebody that are business owners. You don’t have to be the do yourself or do just what you do. Well, this is why we don’t do accounting now. Now, if there were a point where we find out we could actually do it better than other companies, maybe we’d bring it, but right now we’ve got plenty of good options and we don’t have to go through the hassle of trying to create a new branch of our business to do it. And so look for those people that specialize in that area and don’t just specialize, but have a solid, consistent reputation for always delivering the best value.
(17:22)
Even if you think, and this is going outside of this infinite banking and everything else, even it means you have to pay more for it, do it. When we get people that look at us from a standpoint of, Hey, do I want to hire you or do I want to go with this other mastermind group or this other financial advisor over here, or whatever it might be, the question is what kind of results are you going to get? What will it cost you if you do it? Yeah, but Chris, you guys aren’t the cheapest. Yeah, but we’re also not even close to the most expensive either, which we probably should be more expensive than what we are because of the value we’ve delivered and the consistency of it where there’s people that are great marketers, charge the same or more than we do, and yet can’t deliver the results, but they’re so good at the marketing machine that they have.
(18:01)
They just keep turning and burning clients all the time. And I know many of you, maybe you’re going to this new year wondering where might be that best place, and you’re probably having that same lack of trust, the same lack of trust that I see sometimes when I look for hiring coaches for myself. And that’s where, again, it comes back to reputation. Do these people deliver? How do I feel when I’m around them? Do I feel like these people are really solid and have integrity are true to their word, or am I just another number to them? If that’s the case, I don’t want anything to do with those people. I want somebody who’s going to deliver the best value possible to give me the best. And you know what? And I’m not afraid to hire the best. There’s been many times I’ve used people before realize I wasn’t getting the best and then threatened to fire them, including one of my CPAs years ago who was one of my best friends.
(18:53)
I told ’em, listen, if you don’t learn the things that I know that this other group does, you’re fired. If you’re in simple, I want to keep you. I do. I’m not trying be insensitive, but I prioritize me and my family more than I prioritize you and your business and your family. I need to prioritize my family first. And guys, I know it’s no different for you too because that’s the kind of people you are. You’re caring people, you love your families, you want the best for ’em, and you want the best for yourself. And so I would just say this as a warning is like be careful. There are so many people out there that do have great messages and great marketing, but they fail to deliver on that. I know I could be a heck of a better marketer than I am. Yes, we do a decent job, but we’re not anywhere close to those rainmakers that are out there just seriously selling ice to Eskimos.
(19:41)
That’s not us. We don’t want to just bring anybody in. We want to do the best work. And so same thing when I’m looking for coaching, when I’m looking for products and things like that, I’m looking for what will give me the best bang for my buck, the best value. Remember, in scarcity, you focus on price in abundance, you focus on value. What’s going to give me and my family the most value possible? That’s what I recommend you do. Again, you can do whatever you want with your life, but I just hate, this is why we even offer max ROI infinite banking compared to the other infinite bankers out there because we know that you’ll pay more for that stuff needlessly, unnecessarily, painfully. It costs you more money for nothing other than paying the agent more commissions, not back to your own family. That’s the reason why we’re here.
(20:29)
That’s the reason why we keep doing this stuff. This is the reason why I’m out there fighting financial advisors by offering alternative path with alternative investments and passive income versus you throwing your money set and forget into credit mutual funds that might tank right when you need it the most. This is why we are here. This is why I keep doing this podcast, is so that you can make better informed decisions, have more options, and with more options comes more opportunity, less opportunity costs, and more freedom. So go and make it a wonderful and prosperous week. We’ll see you later.