In this episode, I’m diving into the truth about 401(k)s and why they might not be the best bet for your retirement. I’ll break down the myths around tax benefits, performance, and those employer matches everyone talks about.
Spoiler alert: 401(k)s might not be all they’re cracked up to be. I’m also sharing some alternative investment strategies that could help you get to financial freedom faster. If you’re tired of working hard for your money and want to make your money work harder for you, this is the episode for you.
Check out your passive income potential NOW: https://bit.ly/3yWbHSV
TRANSCRIPTS
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You want to live a 20,000 year lifestyle? Yeah, you bet. You’re guaranteed that you’re going to have to have social security, which is why all the boomers need social security because they don’t have enough income coming in because this is the trap everybody gets caught into. This is the myth, the lie of the 401k, 401k is,
(00:33)
Hello my fellow Ripples. This is Chris Miles, your cashflow expert and anti financianal advisor. Welcome to show. That’s for those of you that worked so hard for your money and you’re now ready for your money to start working harder for you today. You want that freedom. You want that cashflow right now, not 30 or 40 years from now, but you want it today so you can live that life that you love with those that you love. But guys, I know you’re not just here to get rich. You’re here to live a rich life because as you’re blessed financially, you navigated capacity to bless the lives of those around you. Thank you for tuning in today, guys. You are the reason that there’s actually a ripple effect. I can’t do this on my own. I know it requires you guys not just to share this and help others too, but it also requires you to be someone who lives what we preach here.
(01:15)
So thank you so much for doing so. Hey, to help you live what you preach. If you are really truly wanting financial freedom and you’re committed to that in your life, the best way to figure that out is what’s possible in your situation is go to money ripples.com, try the passive income calculator today to see how much passive income you could be creating in the next 12 months. Check that out@moneyripples.com. Okay, so it’s fascinating. I was doing a Cashflow Secrets type of webinar for our people here. Some of you guys were probably on it in fact, or had watched it since. And as we’re getting to the question and answers, I just happened to mention the 401k at the end is one of the cashflow ways of stop contributing to your 401k. And what was fascinating is that I could tell I struck a nerve for a few people and granted these people were there to learn they were doing great things, but the hard thing is was how do I break out of that mentality that the 401k is the best thing I should be doing, especially if I’m a W2 employee, or heck, if I’m a business owner, I should be doing this too.
(02:11)
And I’ll tell you just this much as a business owner, there’s no reason to do it in my opinion, okay? There’s not really any good reason to do a 401k because you don’t even get the match, which is the biggest number one thing. But they brought up the match, they brought up the tax benefits, and they even brought up about the fact that’s just hard to make changes that you should supposed to be doing it this way. What about the performance of these 4 0 1 Ks and things like that? So I’m going to talk about these three big myths around this sacred cow, right? Because the 401k is a sacred cow. It’s something that people do not want to let go of. And even if they try to, and this could be you too, you might be thinking that, yeah, but the match, you don’t understand the match tax-free, all these things that happen.
(02:49)
I want to dive into each one of these things to help dispel these myths a little bit because once you understand, and by the way, it took me a while to figure this out myself, but once you understand it, you realize, dang, what am I thinking? Why am I doing it this way? I could be doing so much better. So let’s talk about that right now. Alright, so number one, let’s talk about the tax benefits. Now, I mentioned if you’re a business owner, there is no tax benefit, especially if you’re trying to do it with match. But the truth is, even for you’re employee, there is zero tax benefit. It’s not a tax never scenario. Yes, you do get a deduction from your taxes for the contributions you put to IRAs as well as 4 0 1 KS. But here’s the issue guys. You still have to pay taxes someday.
(03:33)
Now, there might be some of you saying, yeah, but I’m doing a Roth 401k. Okay, great. Well then the tax thing doesn’t really matter anyways because you’re not getting a tax deduction. You’re just hoping to get tax free money down the road, and a Roth 401k in my opinion can be a little bit better. But I’ll tell you, the big thing though is that when people say, well, I get a tax break, okay, let’s dive into that. Okay, first and foremost, when do you tend to get the biggest tax breaks in your life? It’s usually when you’re younger, you’ve got a family getting all the child exemptions off your taxes, right? You’re usually making more money, donating more money. If you’re doing that, if you’re doing tithings or whatever you might be doing or donations in goodwill, great. You get those write-offs. You probably have mortgage interest that you’re using as well.
(04:11)
But think about the traditional mindset around money, around what they teach you about what to do with your money and investing. They say, of course, put away. Save everything you can now and then live on as little as possible when you get to retirement. That’s ultimately what they try to say. Well, think about this. If you’re supposed to be living on a little bit, are you really being taxed a lot? Maybe, maybe not. But the truth is, the reality is most people when they get, especially in those first few years of retirement, is the most expensive years that they ever have because adjusting, you’re trying to change your lifestyle and make things work. You have new things that you’re trying out. Sometimes Medicare, social security doesn’t always kick in right away, and so you’re spending a lot more money in those first few years and then maybe you settle into a pattern as you start to settle into whatever lifestyle you can actually afford.
(05:02)
That’s what happens typically when they’ve done studies on retirement and things like that. So most people think, well, if I can just put it away now and then later on, shouldn’t I get taxed less? And that’s the problem. Many people believe you will spend less money. The reality is that’s not true for two reasons. One I just mentioned because usually especially those first early years of retirement, you end up spending more in many cases during those first early years. Two, the big question you have to ask yourself is are taxes going up or down in the future? Now understand, in 110 year history of the federal income tax, we were at one of the lowest tax bracket we’ve seen. Now when the 401k was first introduced, and this is what many people don’t understand, is that it was introduced as an executive type of perk for those that were top level executives in companies making high, high incomes, they wanted a tax break.
(05:54)
Remember back in the 1970s, the top marginal rate, the federal tax rate was over 80%, 80% right? Now, it’s not even close to that. We’re like less than half of that right now, but over 80%. So they were thinking, well, with all these different tax brackets and they’re so high, I’m not obviously going to be living on millions a year or hundreds and hundreds of thousand dollars a year, even back in the seventies, which was a lot of money back then. I’m not going to be in that kind of situation, that same tax bracket when I’m older. So why don’t we delay, defer my income to a future date, right? Take the deduction now so I’m not being taxed at 80 plus percent and instead I put that money to a future date where hopefully maybe I’m only at 50% tax rate or whatever it might be.
(06:37)
So it was meant only for top level executives, but as Congress, the politicians started to realize social security is not going to last at this rate. There’s not enough people funding it, especially when the baby, well after the baby boomers, especially when it came to be Gen X, and there’s not as many of us as the boomers now, there’s less people funding into this where the boomers were funding the older generations and they were doing just fine, but they were running out of money. They figured, wait, what if we can give a benefit? What if we can do something like this? So they got into bed really with the financial institution saying the this 401k thing, why don’t we offer this to everybody? And so starting about 1985 is when all of a sudden 4 0 1 ks were introduced to the common everyday middle class worker, it was never intended for that.
(07:22)
It was never intended to go to the middle class worker. It was always intended for those high income executives, but not for you. Now, ironically, people that are high, high income often are like, wait a minute, I could do a 401k, but am I going to live on less in the future or not? Am I going to get taxed less in the future or not? Most people that are middle class, and you’ll see this as we get into these other points, will realize that whatever you’re paying in per year is after inflation about what you’re living on per year. But you have to live on more. You have to take out more. So think about it, even just because of inflation alone, even if they don’t change the tax rates, let’s just say you’re making a hundred thousand a year and you think, okay, great, I’m in around the 22 to 24% tax brackets that I’m seeing taken on my paychecks.
(08:02)
Well then all of a sudden down the road because of inflation, say 30 years down the road, you have to live on 300,000 a year to have the same lifestyle. Even if they didn’t increase the tax rates, even if they left them the same, which historically, this is one of the lowest times we’ve ever been in, but let’s just say they kept it the same, still at 300,000, you’re in a higher tax bracket, aren’t you? So unless they keep raising tax brackets, which they tend to do over time, but they do it very slowly, the problem is is that everybody’s teaching you, oh yeah, just delay it for the future. You’ll be fine because you’re going to live on less. You don’t need money when you’re old, right? That’s actually what the HR rep is saying. It’s like when you’re older, you don’t really need much money.
(08:37)
You’ll have a paid off house, you’ll have this and this kids will be moved out. You’re living cheap. Is that what you really want is to live cheap? Secondly, are you really planning to be doing nothing? And then third, I mean if that wasn’t insulting enough for you, right? The third thing is this, guys, is that have you ever known life to get cheaper? And on top of that, I guess there’s a fourth thing. The fourth thing I see is this, when you’re talking about tax benefits, right? What do you usually lose in retirement if you pay off your house? Are you writing off mortgage interest? No. Do you have kids in your home? Hopefully, no. Right? That’s possible. You could have a possible failure to launch, but you’re probably not getting tax write offs off them at that point for adult children. But you’ve lost these biggest tax benefits, and if you’re making less income, are you going to be donating as much?
(09:24)
No. So all these write-offs that you tend to get when you’re younger, you’re now losing when you’re older. So are you going to really save taxes down the road? Would I rather defer my taxes and would I trust the federal government that they’re not going to raise taxes when they’re already talking about how do we fund social security more? How do we even pay for the interest on our debt? We are drowning in debt just from the interest of payments alone. Not to mention the fact that we keep running it up from the budget too. They need to pay for it somehow, and they’re either going to raise your taxes or they’re going to keep printing more money either way if they drive up, inflation drives your ability to live day to day, meaning you have to pull out more money putting you again in a higher tax bracket.
(10:05)
You get my drift here. The tax thing is negligible. You have zero tax benefits in a 401k zero. You’re just deferring your income to a later date hoping and praying that the government has your best interest at heart. Do you really trust that? I don’t. Okay, so that’s number one. Now, number two, let’s go into this now, is that I’m going to save the match for the end, right? Number two is the performance of the 401k. Most people think they’re just invested in the stock market just like everybody else. But guys, I actually went through Fidelity’s numbers last year. I looked at their 10 year performance of their target date retirement funds, which by the way, majority of people put their money in the target date funds and these target date funds. I went for the 10 year track record. The s and p did 10.1% average, not counting dividends.
(10:46)
So they actually did a little bit better, but 10.1 average is just the stock market. The performance of those, the target day funds were 8% flat. So guys, it was 2.1% worse, and that’s before the 0.75% expense deduction came out. So really we got at least 2.85%, and that doesn’t even include, there’s other additional fees and things that we’re not even counting in this thing, right? Just the simple fidelity fees, right? So that’s about 3% less. So guys, let me show you something that’s interesting about that. Okay? So I’m going to do a comparison. I’m actually taking the example of the guy that was actually in that masterclass. He was saying, I have a thousand dollars every month coming out of my paycheck and I’m getting a thousand dollars match. I say, perfect. The a hundred percent match is your best case scenario. I’m going to talk about that match here in a second.
(11:36)
It’s going to lead right into it. So here he’s have a thousand a month. He’s putting his own money in. Naturally he’s getting matched a thousand a month. That’s 24,000 a year. 12,000 plus 12,000. Now, I put it at 6.25. I’m actually going to put the other example of just the market at 9%. I’m going above the average. The average of 30 of the s and p has actually been about 8.4%. Okay? I’m putting it at really 9% on these numbers, and then I’m actually giving a little benefit of the doubt for the Fidelity funds performance at 6.25%, because if at 10%, 10.1%, they’re only doing 8%, imagine what it’s doing. If it’s only doing about 8.4, it’s going to be doing less into the sixes. Right now, I’m doing this for 30 years. I’m assuming this person might be 30 years old packing the money away.
(12:20)
They’re just starting their 401k. Well, this 30 or 40 years doesn’t really matter a whole lot here. Here’s the point. After 30 years, you’re going to have about $2.1 million. Now, I’ve also put in a 5% inflation rate. I think that’s a very conservative number. That means that about every 14 years you’re seeing lifestyle double. Really, there’s a lot of debate that even every 10 years that inflation doubles the real rate, not the government claimed rate, that they always try to show you a lower rate so they can raise social security less so they don’t run out of money faster, but 5%. That means you’re after buying power, even though you have 2.1 million, which by the way is reasonable, right? You still only have about 487,000, just under a half million of buying power. Remember, if you have an advisor who actually stays up to speed with things, he’ll tell you that you should only pull out 3% a year from your retirement fund.
(13:16)
What’s 3% of that just under 15,000 a year? Well, what if you lose a quarter of that to taxes because you haven’t paid taxes yet, have you? You’ll lose a quarter of that taxes. You’re walking with maybe 11,000 a year, 12,000 if you’re lucky, right? So you’re living on a thousand dollars a month after you’ve paid into it. How much thousand dollars a month, right there. That’s pretty bad. So even with the match, the match is like, okay, cool, but remember the match sometimes just makes up for the bad performance. Now, you might say, wait a minute. Well, I make a hundred percent return. I’m getting there, but I want someone compare doing a 401k versus just doing investing on your own. I want you to see this. Guys, check this out on this next screen. I did the same numbers, right? Okay, so here it is, 12,000.
(13:59)
Your saying you just put 12,000 your own money in. Maybe you put between two people and Roth I raises, you can put in 6,000 a year if you’re not 50 yet, 6,000 a year into two different Roth IRAs, so it could be tax free potentially, right? 9% interest rate. So again, I put it above the average just to make my point here, 30 years, your total is 1.782 a little bit less than what the 401k does with the match, right? Obviously remember it was 2.1 before, but here’s the thing. That 412 after inflation adjustment, that means you’re living on roughly just a little over 12,000 a year. But if it’s in Roth ira, that’s tax-free. 12,000 a year, isn’t it? What is it we just said on the last one? You’re living on about what? 11,000, maybe 12,000 a year with a 401k. Here you go.
(14:43)
You do your own investing and ta. There you go. Now, here’s the other thing. If you can earn on alternative investments, what if you didn’t have it gambling in the market? What if you did alternative investments? Most investments that our clients or VIP clients are doing that work with us usually getting at least 10%, at least some or more. Sometimes there might be a little bit less, but usually they’re averaging at least 10% on their returns. Well, 10% if you have that money, you’re doing the same thing. You’re just building up that cash, compounding it. It’s not a whole lot more. Now you get about 2.1 million, so oops. Now if you see that, you’ll see right here it’s about 2.1 million. Also, it’s about the same, even a little bit better than the 401k, but here’s the big difference. Here’s the big difference, guys. Look after inflation, 500,000, that’s still about the same, right?
(15:33)
If this were just a traditional type of retirement plan because they tell you to not run out of money if there’s market swings and things like that, you should only be pulling out 3% a year to not run out of money when you’re live. But when you’re being paid, say a contractual type of thing, say you’re lending your money out at 10%, your income is actually the 10%, not the 3%, but the 10%. Therefore, the after inflation, that 500,000, that half million generates 50,000 a year. Now, there are some that have some tax breaks, but even if they didn’t, let’s say there’s no tax breaks. Let’s just say quarter of your income of that 50,000 goes to taxes, guess what? You’re still left with about 38 to $40,000 a year after tax versus 11 or 12,000 after tax with the 401k. This is why our clients, not to mention they get there faster anyways because they’re able to retire faster with higher income, but this is why they’re like, I just got there way faster than after decades doing my 401k because they know they can actually get better consistent returns that generate income, not just cashflow.
(16:35)
Now, I’ll come back to that. Alright, so let’s come back to the match. Remember, I mentioned that the match just makes up for the bad performance. Well, how much is your real rate of return on this, right? What is the real rate of return on $12,000 of the money you’re actually putting in even with the match? Now, everybody will tell me, they’re like, well, if I get a hundred percent match, Chris, I’m getting a hundred percent rate of return. I’d be dumb not to do this, and I used to think the same thing as a financial advisor. I was like, well, that’s what it is. Now, I remember from one financial advisor, they told me that’s not the true return, and I remember I tried to explain it to a client when I was a financial advisor. I’m like, well, that’s not the true return of 401k, and they said, how I put in a thousand a month or 12,000 a year, they matched 12,000.
(17:18)
That’s a hundred percent rate of return. And I was like, yeah, and so maybe you were like me and again, I was a financial advisor. I was supposed to have it figured out. I didn’t have anything figured out. You might be like me, and even if you kind of feel like a 401k isn’t right for you or right for a lot of people, it’s hard for you to tell that to other people because how do you prove it? This is how you prove it, and it is very simple to do. I just tell people this. I’m like, watch, remember this. Number 2.106 right now. That’s what the number is with the match. Now, what if I put it back to 12,000 and you might say, well, Chris, I get a hundred percent return. Let’s put 106.25% in 30 years, and what do we get? All right.
(17:58)
I got to count some zeros here. Okay, here it is, guys. If you put in 12,000 a year for the next 30 years getting your 106.25% return, you will have 62,960 billion, $37,938,051 and 28 cents. Do you really think putting in your measly little thousand dollars a month getting your match from your employer is going to make you a multi-trillion there in 30 years? Imagine the taxes on that sucker, right? Obviously, nobody with a 401k does that, but everybody tells you it’s a hundred percent rate of return. It’s absolutely 100% a bold face lie. It is a hundred percent return on the money you put in, but it’s not a hundred percent return compounded on the money that’s growing in the total amount, the best time, the best return you get on your 401k is in the first year, but once you get past the first year and you start to try to help grow your money really past several months, once you get past that, the return goes down.
(18:54)
As time goes on, all it does is just double whatever it would’ve been. Let me show you what I mean. So for example, if I put this at 12,000 a year for 6.25, going back 1,053,000, what happens if it’s 24,000? Right? Watch, it’s just exactly double. It’s just double. Now, if you know the rule of 72, right? The rule of 72 says you take the number of 72, divide it into the interest rate you’re earning, and that’s how many years it takes to double. Well, think about it. If all you do is double, the more years you get, the less return is. If I show you 40 years, it’s even worse. If I show you 20 years, it’s better, but if I show you the same 30 years, remember 2.106, what’s the actual return if you factor in your actual 12,000, if you throw that in with the match, it is better than 6.25 obviously, but that double only gets you up to 9.85 and I actually gave you a little extra.
(19:53)
It’s actually 9.849% will get you right about there, so 9.85% I rounded up just to give you a few extra bucks. You’re welcome. You get an extra $800 out of the sucker, but 9.85 instead of 6.25, yes, you did get a 3.6% better re rate of return, but not a hundred percent better is it? Remember I showed you before I showed you even if you just invested yourself at 9%, right? Let’s see, where was that 9% one? There it is 9%, yeah, you get 1.782. Sure that match is better by a little bit, but remember, you locked up all your money for all that for that little match, but what if you could do better? Remember, that’s the same after inflation adjustment, right? Again, still less than 15,000 a year after you pay taxes. You might live on 11,000 a year, but if I invest earning return, and it’s not just the return, but it’s the income.
(20:48)
The income is the thing that everybody misses. This is what everyone tends to miss out on is because they think only in the end number. The end number means jack squat because why? Because I get the Dave Ramsey poster, children reaching out to us saying, can we hire you? Because we followed all that advice. We got debt free. We saved up all this money in mutual funds. We got like 2 million, 3 million saved in here and we still can’t retire. We have zero income because we’re just trying to not lose enough money or outlive our money, so we end up spending it all while we’re alive. Instead, can we turn that into income? Because if you’ve got a million dollars earning 10%, you get a hundred thousand a year versus million dollars in the stock market because if you’re in those retirement accounts, you’re only told to pull out 30,000 a year and then you pay taxes on it just like the 401k.
(21:32)
This is the problem. Everybody keeps telling you the match. It’s free money. It’s dumb money. Well, of course it’s dumb. It’s dumb that nobody’s challenging people on this. That’s what’s dumb that we’re just taking it hook, line and sinker while the financial institutions are saying, thank you so much for your money. This was awesome. I made so much money. I am glad because those institutions made more money off of you trying to compound your money with them, not because you’re going to have a better life. It’s going to make sure those companies keep increasing their stock prices, making more money for their executives and all the bonuses they get after they get bailout money and things like that. While you still have to struggle because you’re hoping and praying, the stock market will just happen to go up right when you need it the most.
(22:14)
What if it doesn’t go up? What if it goes down? What if falls up? We’re not getting those kind returns like I’m showing you. I was being very generous on the stock market returns while being conservative on the alternative investment returns. I’ve got plenty of real estate investments that are doing over 20%, 30% a year. I’ve got some that aren’t doing that much. They might be doing six to 8% a year. Sometimes they’re based in oil and gas or whatever they might be, but I’ve got a wide variety, but I’m making way into the double digits overall with my portfolio. How? Because I’m using the very things that your financial advisor nor the fidelities of the world, no one wants you to know about or they don’t even understand themselves. Now, if it’s the big institutions, they get it. They understand it because they could do it themselves.
(22:55)
It’s the financial advisor, the financial experts you hear on the media. They’re always just playing into that same narrative of always just stuff that money in that 401k get your free match. By the way, some of you guys don’t even get a hundred percent match. I was showing you a hundred percent. If it’s 50%, the return’s not even as good. It’s like, oh, yeah, I made a one and a half percent extra on bad performing investments. I’d even make up for it. You would be better off if you’re not getting a hundred percent matched. You would be better off investing your own money, assuming you’re just putting it into the s and p 500 fund, and by the way, even that isn’t even fully diversified. That is still hugely risky. Not a conservative thing to go for, not a diversified fund because 30% of ’em are in six stocks out of 500.
(23:32)
That’s 30% of the stock price right there of the index price, so beware, beware of those kinds of things, but that’s the thing, guys. The tax advantage is a moot point because you’re going to have to pay taxes on it later hoping and praying that taxes don’t go up in the future, and then of course you have the performance of the funds that are crap. They don’t even do that well, and then on top of that, you find out that the match doesn’t really give you that big of a return anyways. It just makes up for the bad performance of those funds and that the end of the day the income is still lacking. Whatever you pay into a 401k even with the match is roughly after inflation about what you live on every year. If you’re trying to save up 10,000 a year, do you want to live on 10,000 a year?
(24:08)
If you max fund a 401k at 20,000 a year, do you want to live a 20,000 year lifestyle? Yeah, you bet. You’re guaranteed that you’re going to have to have social security, which is why all the boomers need social security. They don’t have enough income coming in because they couldn’t save that much money legally because you’re capped out on your 401k or even just for the fact that you may not have enough income to do that. This is the trap everybody gets caught into. This is the myth, the lie of the 401k, the 401k is not as great as everybody says it is. This is why I don’t care to have four one K for myself and in fact as a company, we don’t offer a 401k because we already know it’s a bunch of bs. A BS that’s been taught for years so that you will stop putting pressure on the government to take care of you.
(24:52)
That’s why the government went in bed with the financial institutions. Institutions love it because they have more money. You just pack away, leave it there, set and forget it and hope that that match will somehow work out. Well, what if happens when you get to the date just like all these other baby boomers saying, I don’t have enough. When the average 401k for the baby boomer at 65 is about $300,000 and they’re realizing they’re doing the math, they’re like, that’s 9,000 a year I’m living on. Yeah, you’re right. It’s not enough. Not because you didn’t save enough, but because you bought into the myth and the lie that’s been perpetuated for a couple decades now, now going on almost 40 years starting next year, that this is the answer and it is not. You have a choice, guys. This is not anything new. Look at reality.
(25:34)
Look at people’s lives. People are not saying, man, that 401k is the best thing I ever did, Uhuh. I know I’m talking to these people and they’re not saying that. Now, some people will say, at least I have my 401k. They will say that, but because they don’t know any better, it’s like someone saying, Hey, you know what? I grew up in a hut, but man, it was a nice hut, had a lot of straw on it. Well, if they haven’t ever seen a freaking brick and mortar type of place, if they didn’t know that even existed, yeah, they’re going to be very grateful for it, and I’m not saying doing the 401k is bad in the sense that you saving is bad thing. In fact, you saving is a very good thing. It’s not your fault that all these lies and myths have been perpetuated to you and you haven’t been taught this.
(26:18)
This is why I’m teaching this stuff. This is why I don’t just simply retire and fade into sunset. This is why I feel like I have this moral obligation to educate you so that you can choose for yourself and have a different life than the future life that I already know is coming for you because we’ve already seen it happen over these last several decades. Too many people are getting to retirement and saying they can’t do it. Here’s the bigger question, guys. What if he could retire sooner? What if you didn’t have to wait until your sixties or seventies like my dad did, who did get the match from his 401k worked so hard, so hard, sacrificed everything so that he could keep trying to say whatever pennies he had left to then also pay off his house and 18 years be totally 100%, and yet he’s like, I don’t even have the freedom to go do what I want to do, and he had to keep working into his seventies to ensure he had a retirement.
(27:09)
Is that the life you want to live so that you can just hopefully meek eek out five or 10 years of life at the end of your life? You slave away for 40 years to then live for maybe 10, 15 years at most based on the average age. Then if you live longer, then you’re living, but you can’t really live. You’re so scared that you’re going to run out of money because you live too long. This is what my dad’s experiencing now is that he’s trying to stretch out his dollars as long as he can because he’s living longer than he even expected. Then all of us expected these stories come up all the freaking time. I see it every single day and I see people are getting in their fifties and even their sixties saying, I’ve been saving a lot, but I’ve got a half million and based on that 3% rule, I’m pulling out 15,000 a year.
(27:51)
That’s not enough. What am I going to do? Do I have enough time? Am I have to work until I die? The answer is no. If you make different choices today, every day you wait, is another day that you’re going to be destined for living a life of scarcity. I’m not just trying to do this guys to scare you. I’m trying to get you to wake up and to realize that this future reality, this pain that you could be experiencing down the road, the years of life that you could be missing out on, that you could be doing just by making one simple decision today by doing something different, something that the majority of Americans don’t realize is a good thing because they don’t know any differently. They haven’t been taught. The financial advisors have been teaching you what puts money in their pockets, not yours.
(28:39)
You have a choice right now to either break free or to stay in ignorance. You can take that blue pill, the red pill, right? It’s up to you, but you have a choice and now it’s on you. You have the responsibility. It’s nobody else’s fault. Now, from this point forward for you, either you determined to do something different with your life or you become a victim, not because somebody else victimized you, but because you decided to remain a victim. That is the choice you have at this point. The proof is here, guys, I’ve taught this for years. If for those of you that already heard this more than once, you’re no longer ignorant, good news, bad news is you’re no longer ignorant. The choice is yours, guys, this is why. This is the ripple effect I’m here to create, to liberate you. The ripple effect doesn’t begin and end with Chris Miles.
(29:22)
The ripple effect really ultimately ends with what do you choose to do today? How do you make your life different? How do you not end up like the average American broke and just trying to live, even if they’ve got a few hundred thousand in retirement, just trying to live on a meager living, relying on social security to help bridge the gap so that they don’t run out of money too quickly? Don’t go for that lifestyle. That path has been trodden down, worn down, and there’s a lot of ugliness on that path. Choose the path of freedom that I’m seeing so many more people do. This is why we go for the thousand people financially independent by 2030, because there are some of you that actually have that opportunity to do so. If you choose to do so right now, guys, that’s my challenge to do. Make it a wonderful prosperous week. Let us know if we can help you in any way by going to money ripples.com and reaching out to us today. Make it a great weekend.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Thank you. Yes. Hey,
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Visit us online@moneyripples.com for more resources to help you fix money leaks and get your money working harder for you. Now.