Part 1- Live Your Financial Life Deliberately
Where do we get our beliefs? Why do we hold onto them so fiercely, especially when they don’t help us? Are we able to change? How do learn to run against the pack? Where do we find the courage to do so?
Live Your Life Deliberately
I’m in a really nice restaurant with a good friend that I haven’t seen in ages. I’ve already started a tab for my drink, placed my napkin on my lap and am buttering a piece of the warm, homemade bread. We’re settling into a nice conversation when the waiter arrives with the menus. I’ve never been here before, and I’m starving and looking forward to a nice meal.
WHAT? I open the menu to find that there are two choices on the menu – one is outrageously expensive and doesn't sound appetizing at all. Ah, but what’s this second item? Looks like my favorite, and it is what I was expecting to pay. Unfortunately, the waiter comes back to fill my water glass, tells me they are sold out and that I would have had to be here at 4 p.m. for the early bird special to order my favorite choice. We look at each other, and begrudgingly ask for the only option on the menu.
How would you feel after wards? Would you return for more? Would you recommend it to a friend? Of course not! However, day in and day out, we see people give up choice and control over something much more important than a crummy meal at a restaurant. We see people getting backed into a corner with regard to their money, their retirements and their lifestyles on a regular basis. What is so unusual is they don’t like it, but they put up with it. They keep going back to that restaurant.
Why do people let the government dictate how their assets will be taxed, distributed, taken away, or even divvied up upon their deaths? Perhaps they don’t care, but more than likely, they don’t know that there are other options. They follow the common logic of the time. Sometimes they choose the default…and take no action at all.
One example that comes to mind is what people will do to avoid taxation. Do you know anyone over 70-1/2 or are you yourself that magic age? Many people in this age bracket will live like paupers, yet have hundreds of thousands in their IRAs. They don’t want to touch it because they will have to pay taxes on the money as it is withdrawn. They’ve already ordered their meals, yet they are hoping that if they don’t eat it, they won’t have to pay the bill on the way out.
If only they would tell the young couple that is walking in as they are walking out to run like hell. There is another restaurant down the street where things are much different. Only one problem…the first couple doesn’t know it exists.
- It is possible to create tax-free income that doesn’t put age restriction on your money and doesn’t tell you how much you can save.
- It is possible to help you take care of your family and yourself at the same time.
- It is possible for an inheritance to make your children better, not worse, because of it.
- It is possible to not rely on others for credit, and to become your own bank.
- It is possible to take control of how your assets are distributed upon your death.
- It is possible to protect what you have.
- It is possible to make sure that your family never has to make really hard decisions because you chose not to.
By now you should be getting the idea, however, none of these things happen by accident.
One must live life deliberately!