I’ve lost a bet.  I’ve lost my keys.  But I’ve never lost a decade – until now.”

- Sam Stovall, S&P’s chief strategist

The S&P 500 ended the past decade down almost 25 percent below where it was ten years earlier.  And that doesn’t even factor in the 29% inflation we experienced during the decade.

In fact, since the end of 1999, the S&P 500 stock index has lost an average of 3.3% a year, on an inflation-adjusted basis, even after including dividends, according to the data compiled by Charles Jones, finance professor at North Carolina State University.¹

Hmmm… so what does that mean to the typical family in dollars and cents?

You may want to grab a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, because it isn’t very pretty…

Here’s what inflation and negative returns have done to a nest egg invested in an S&P 500 index fund (the way most Americans’ retirement savings are), over the past decade…

You now need a 39.9% increase just to get back to where you were ten years ago!

Given that the stock market has just experienced its fastest climb since 1933, how likely do you think it is that we’ll have another 39.9% rise this year? Especially given soaring government spending, stubbornly high unemployment, and looming tax hikes.

Even if we do see that kind of increase, it would only take you back to dollars worth what they were ten years ago, so you’d need another 29% increase just to break even!

And here’s something else that really sucks:  45 percent of Americans say they hate their jobs, according to a just-released survey.

Can you imagine what it would feel like if you’ve been sweating away at a job you can’t stand so you could put money away for your financial future… only to see your hard-earned dollars vanish?!?

Investors would have been better off investing in pretty much anything else (during the past decade) or even just stuffing money under a mattress.” ¹

Meanwhile, what lessons have we learned from a lost decade?

Wall Street and the financial “gurus” are still pitching the same saving and investing strategies that got us where we are.

The number one best-selling book on personal finance recently was about how to get back to even – from the same guy whose advice put you in the hole in the first place.

This may surprise you…

For hundreds of thousands of families who use the Bank On Yourself method, their nest-eggs remained intact – and have continued growing.  Safely, consistently, and predictably.

Oh what a difference it makes when both your principal and gains are locked in… and you’re getting compounded growth on a bigger number every single year!

But don’t take my word for it.  Here’s an example of how one of my own Bank On Yourself policies grew over the past decade.  It’s a real eye-opener, so I urge you to check it out.

There are a few cracks appearing in the investment industry’s armor recently, though.  Last week, an article in Investment News noted:

Sales of immediate annuities and whole-life insurance will increase this year as boomers nearing retirement seek reliable income streams that aren’t subject to the whims of the market.”

The article also described whole-life insurance as a “fixed-income alternative… that can fare well despite a low interest-rate environment.”²

And keep in mind they’re talking about a traditional whole life policy – the kind Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey and most other financial experts and advisors talk about.  But a Bank On Yourself-type dividend-paying whole life policy has features that super-charge the growth of your cash value, so you’re going to have a lot more cash available to use any way you want – especially in the early years of the policy.

If you knew there were a way to grow your nest-egg safely and predictably, while getting all the other advantages we just talked about – and then some – and that your plan would only get better and better every single year, when would be the best time to get started?

If you answered something along the lines of “yesterday,” I have good news for you.  There’s actually a way to “turn back the clock” for up to six months, when you start a Bank On Yourself policy, so you can help make up for some of that lost time.

The best way to get started is to request your free Bank On Yourself Analysis.  You’ll get a referral to a knowledgeable Bank On Yourself Authorized Advisor, who can help you turn back the clock.

There's no obligation on your part

And if you’ve already started to Bank On Yourself,  congratulations!  Please take this as a reminder of the many benefits you’re getting.  And please pass the word on to others you care about.

We want to hear from you!  What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from the lost decade?  Share your comments below…

¹ “Investors Hope the ’10s Beat the ’00s,” Tom Lauricella, Wall Street Journal, 12/20/09

² “Immediate annuities and whole life are likely to gain favor,” Darla Mercado, Investment News, 1/10/10

How many of these questions have you been wondering about?

FAQ #1: How does Bank On Yourself compare with traditional investing and savings strategies?

You can compare the Bank On Yourself method to traditional investments here, including stocks and mutual funds, a 401(k), a ROTH plan, real estate, gold, commodities and several other investments.

If there’s a different financial product or strategy that you think can match or beat the Bank On Yourself method, I encourage you to take the $100,000 Challenge. If you’re right, you could pick up an easy $100K!

FAQ #2: How does Bank On Yourself let you recapture every penny you pay for major purchases like cars, vacations, business equipment or a college education?

I’ve summarized this in a short video overview of how Bank On Yourself works.

However, for a more detailed explanation, you’ll want to review Chapters 2, 6, and pages 52-54 of my best-selling book, Bank On Yourself. If you don’t have the book, we offer a 35% discount on it.

FAQ #3: I’ve heard people like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman say whole life insurance is a lousy place to put your money. Is a Bank On Yourself-type policy different from the kind they’re talking about?

This is one of my favorite questions! Why? Because it’s so darn easy to PROVE that this type of dividend-paying whole life policy is a totally different “animal,” and that most financial advisors and “gurus” don’t even know the first thing about it!

Don’t take my word for it! You can see proof of how a Bank On Yourself policy is different here.

FAQ #4: How much does it cost to start a Bank On Yourself policy? Is there a minimum amount I have to start with? Is there a maximum amount I can put in?

There is no cost for a Bank On Yourself Analysis that will show you all the bottom-line results you could get with Bank On Yourself.

Should you then choose to start a Bank On Yourself policy, the Bank On Yourself Authorized Advisors do not charge fees to design and implement your plan. They receive a commission from the insurance company, which has already been taken into account in the bottom-line numbers you’ll see.

Much like buying a TV or a couch, the costs of manufacturing and sales are already included in the price, or in the premium, in the case of a Bank On Yourself policy.

These Advisors also take a 50-70% pay cut when they design your policy this way. You can learn more about the specialized training the Bank On Yourself Authorized Advisors receive, and why they take such a big pay cut.

However, Bank On Yourself is not a one-size-fits-all plan. There’s no pre-set amount a person would put into a plan, because the policy would be customized to YOUR unique situation, goals and dreams.

There's no obligation on your part

If you’d like to see how a custom-tailored program could improve your financial picture, it’s easy to find out when you take advantage of a free, no-obligation Bank On Yourself Analysis here.

You can start at whatever level is comfortable for you. The upper limit is determined by your income and assets.

FAQ #5: I don’t have a single dime left over at the end of the month. Where do I find the funds to start a Bank On Yourself plan?

Bank On Yourself Authorized Advisors are masters at helping people restructure their finances to free up seed money to fund a plan designed to help you reach as many of your short-term and long-term goals as possible – and as quickly as possible. Sometimes this can be done without impacting your lifestyle at all. Here are eight of the most common ways to find the money to Bank On Yourself.

FAQ #6: How do I know if Bank On Yourself will work for me? And how do I get started?

Bank On Yourself is not a magic pill. It takes a little patience and discipline. But if you have those traits, it pays a lifetime of benefits.

There's no obligation on your part

To find out what your bottom-line numbers and results could be (free and without obligation), just click this button:

You can also learn more about the step-by-step process involved once you’ve requested your free Analysis.

If you take the first step now, you could start to Bank On Yourself in as little as 60 days!

I hope this helps! If you still have a question or concern that hasn’t been answered, let us know below.

The statistic comes from the respected research firm, Dalbar, Inc., in its 15th annual study of mutual fund investor behavior. The study measures the returns investors actually get, not the returns they wished they got.

According to Lou Harvey, the president of Dalbar, the study once again revealed that

“investor returns lag what performance reports and prospectuses would lead one to believe is achievable. While those returns are theoretically achievable, the reality is that investors are not rational, and make buy and sell decisions at the worst possible moments.”

Let me paint a picture of how this happens: Lets say you do what the author (who calls himself “David K.”) of the rather nasty blog comment suggests and buy “simple index funds” and hold them for twenty years.

Now, it should be noted that “David K.” did not suggest he had actually managed to follow his own recommendation, nor did he offer any brokerage account statements that show he had the wisdom and patience to hold onto an index fund for 20 years. (I, on the other hand, do show my own Bank On Yourself policy statements as proof.)

That’s not the point, but let’s say you did buy an index fund 20 yeas ago. When the dotcom stocks were flying high a decade ago, most investors jumped on that bandwagon. Index funds that tracked the overall market were no longer in fashion. Investors loaded up on tech stocks and mutual funds, ultimately suffering deep losses when the internet bubble burst.

Afraid of losing even more, many investors sold off their internet stocks. This is in spite of their “resolve” not to try to time the market. Many were also too scared to get back into the market, until they had already missed the big upswing, which wasn’t even in tech stocks.

Pamphlet from the Dutch tulipomania, printed in 1637

This is the kind of pattern human beings have followed for all of eternity. A few years ago, it was real estate. In the 1600’s in Europe, it was tulip bulbs, of all things.

Since the current bear market started, most of the otherwise intelligent people I know sold off their stocks and mutual funds. It has nothing to do with intelligence. We humans are motivated by fear and greed, which is why you will find very few people who actually did hold on for two decades to an index fund that tracks the overall market.

So, is it just us “regular” folks who do this?

Nope! 80% of all mutual funds underperform the overall market (source: The Motley Fool), and 80% of all investment advisory services underperform the overall market (source: The Hulbert Financial Digest).

So the scenario that David K. paints that could have given investors a 6% return over the last 20 years happened for only a small percentage of people.

If even most experts can’t do it successfully consistently, it’s not a science – it’s a crapshoot.

David K. also conveniently ignores the fees charged by mutual funds and the wealth-killing management fees you get charged in 401(k) plans, etc. (60 Minutes recently did an expose on this.)

The reality is that if you’re in a higher tax bracket, you’d need to get a 7-8% return before taxes to equal the net return you could get in a Bank On Yourself policy. (Under current tax law, you can take retirement income from a Bank On Yourself policy with little or no taxes due.)

And when you Bank On Yourself, you can do that with no luck, skill or guesswork required, and you can do it without the stress and the nail-biting ups and downs of stocks, real estate and other investments.

David K. insists “you simply are not going to get big returns without considerable risk.” Like most Americans, David has been brainwashed (especially by Wall Street) into believing we must accept risk and volatility to grow a sizable nest-egg.

It’s a lie!

To respond to David’s comment that if he were in Suze Orman’s shoes and had 25 million dollars, he “wouldn’t mess around with the stock market either” – this was in response to an earlier blog post where there was a link to the New York Times interview where Suze said she only invests 4% of her liquid assets in the stock market because “if I lose a million dollars, I don’t personally care.”

I will say again that I believe financial gurus like Suze, Dave Ramsey and others have some very good advice and have helped many people turn around their financial lives.

But I’ve got news for David K. – Suze Orman did not make her fortune by taking the risks in the stock market she urges the rest of us to take. She made her money through endorsements, TV appearances and book and other product sales.

Would you eat in a restaurant where the chef eats their own cooking and then throws it up?

If not, maybe you should think twice about following advice that the advice-giver can’t stomach themselves.

Stay tuned, because I will soon be revealing the details of a shocking new report on the long-term results people have been getting when they invest in the stock market.

One of my most influential mentors (Dan Kennedy) says,

If you don’t offend somebody by noon each day, you’re not doing much.”

So I want to thank Danny Snyder, whose post to this blog you’ll find below (exactly as he submitted it), for confirming that I am indeed doing something:

First of all using the words “money on steroids” immediatly puts you in the liar and non-trustworthy catagory. If you put in $5314.44 and your cash value is $2937.18 you need some ritilin, you are A.D.D. Dave Ramsey (who is in a catagory way above the likes of you and Suze Boreman) knows of what he speaks. Millions of people have changed their lives due to Dave’s advice. You need to tread very lighlty, if you want to succeed and prove yourself. Think… before you tear down people you do not know. I do actually Bank on Myself.

Your a scam!

Danny Snyder

On this website, I have stated that I agree with many of the basic principles taught by the financial “gurus” like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman.  And I know they have helped turn around the financial lives of many.

However, there are two critical areas we differ on…

1.  That you must risk your money in the stock market to grow a substantial nest-egg

2.  That any kind of whole life insurance should be avoided

Dave and Suze (and many others) insist that investing in mutual funds is the road to wealth.  Suze insists in her latest book that “only stocks offer the potential for inflation-beating gains over the long term.”  However, research shows that’s actually the road to financial insecurity.

The reality is that the typical mutual fund investor has actually been losing 1 percent per year over the last 20 years, after adjusting for inflation

Suze neglects to mention that investing this way also has the potential to dash your dreams of retirement and financial security, as so many Americans have discovered.  Suze wants you to do what she says, not what she herself does.  She has admitted to the New York Times (and elsewhere), that she only has 4 percent of her $25 million of liquid assets in the stock market, because “If I lose a million dollars in the stock market, I don’t personally care.”

Dave and Suze – and most other “experts” – insist whole life is a horrible product.  But what fries me is that, when asked about Bank On Yourself-type policies, most of them typically dismiss it with some variation of “Oh, that’s just another way for life insurance agents to try to put a sexy wrapper around something that’s a waste of your money,” without even taking the time to learn the facts.

Anyone who takes two minutes to look at the policy statement examples on my post challenging Dave and Suze to a debate will realize that Bank On Yourself policies are a totally different animal from the kind they know about.

It’s not really their fault that they don’t know how a Bank On Yourself policy works or how it’s different from the ones they know about.  Out of more than 1,500 life insurance companies, only a handful even offer a product that meets all the requirements and has all the features needed to maximize the power of the Bank On Yourself concept.

As a result, this type of specially-designed type of dividend-paying whole life policy isn’t even covered in the training programs advisors are required to take to get licensed.

But don’t you think these experts should get the facts before pronouncing judgment?

Regarding Danny’s comment above that I need some “ritilin” if I paid $5,314 into one policy in the first year and only had $2,937 of cash value at the end of the year:  You missed the point.

I showed that statement to demonstrate that Dave, Suze, et al., are talking about a totally different policy from a Bank On Yourself plan.  They talk about whole life policies that have no cash value at all in the first few years.  But a Bank On Yourself policy has cash value in the first year, and you could have significantly more cash value you can use, especially in the early years of the plan.

And, as I noted, no – you don’t get back every penny of premium in the first year, because there are no magic pills, folks.  There’s a cost for all the benefits, advantages and guarantees you get with a Bank On Yourself plan (including the fact that the company will pay out the full death benefit of the policy, even if the policy owner dies after making only one premium payment).

Think of it as a start-up phase.  It’s a one-time requirement that pays a lifetime of benefits.

And I wonder why Danny ignored the other (older) policy statement that shows how much one of my policies went up during the same period that the S&P 500 plunged by 40%?

All my principal and all my previous gains were locked in!

The plan grew by a guaranteed amount plus I received a dividend.  Just as has happened every year for more than 100 years, to every one of the more than 100,000 Americans who already use Bank On Yourself for true financial peace of mind.

The fact of the matter is that if it weren’t for Bank On Yourself, we’d be in he same boat as most Americans, wondering if we’d ever be able to retire, and what we’d have to give up in order to do that.

As the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer noted,

All truth goes through three stages:  It is ridiculed; then it is radically opposed; and only much later will it be accepted as self-evident.”

To find out how adding Bank On Yourself to your financial plan can help you reach your goals and dreams, and for a referral to a Bank On Yourself Authorized Advisor (a life insurance agent with advanced training in this concept) who knows how to structure your policy correctly and can show you how to use it to recapture the money you pay for cars, vacations, business equipment, a college education and other major purchases, request your free Analysis today.

Here’s why…

S&P 500 loses 25% over the 10 years from 1/1/00 - 12/31/09 (and inflation took another 29% bite)

If you browse the personal finance section of any bookstore, turn on the TV or open a magazine on finance, you’ll discover that 99 out of 100 financial “gurus” will insist that whole life insurance is a lousy place to put your money.  Most will recommend you buy term life insurance instead and invest the difference in mutual funds.

That’s in spite of the fact that, had you invested in an S&P 500 index fund for the past decade, your nest-egg would have been shredded by almost 25%.  And that doesn’t even factor in 29% inflation during this period!

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Part of the problem is these financial experts know nothing about the specially designed type of dividend-paying whole life policy used for the Bank On Yourself method…

It’s not really their fault.  Out of 1,500 major life insurance companies only a handful offer a policy that has all the features required to maximize the power of this concept. That’s one reason it’s not even mentioned in most industry training programs.

And the fact that an advisor who helps a client implement a Bank On Yourself-designed policy takes a 50-70% cut in commission could be another reason why you haven’t heard of this before now.

So how is a Bank On Yourself-policy different from the kind of whole life policies Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, David Bach, and others talk about?

Here are a few key differences:

These experts say the money you can have access to in the plan (your “cash value”) grows too slowly in a whole life policy, and say you typically won’t have any cash value at all in the first three years.

A Bank On Yourself policy, however, incorporates a special rider or option that puts the growth of your money in the policy on legal steroids, so you have significantly more equity, especially in the early years of the policy. This allows you to use it as a financial management tool from Day One.

Don’t take our word for it – here’s a statement from a Bank On Yourself-designed dividend-paying whole life policy, at the end of just one year.

Most financial experts, including Suze and Dave, write about policies where your death benefit stays level for the life of the policy.

However, in a dividend-paying whole life policy, dividends can be left in the policy to purchase additional coverage, while at the same time growing your cash value in the most efficient way possible.  This policy statement shows you how this works, and proves these policies are different from the ones Suze and Dave talk about.

Please note that this statement is from a policy I started before I learned about Bank On Yourself, and it has grown much more slowly than a policy designed to maximize the power of the Bank On Yourself concept.

Even so, this policy has left my mutual funds and real estate investments in the dust.

The financial experts often rant about how, when the policy owner dies, the insurance company “only” pays you the death benefit and keeps your cash value.

But with a Bank On Yourself policy it’s very different, as you can see on this policy statement.

So I am throwing out the gauntlet to Suze, Dave or any expert who wants to challenge me.  Just name the time and place!

I’m so confident that they’ll come around once they get the facts about Bank On Yourself, that I’ve reserved a special place for their endorsements along with the trusted experts who have already endorsed Bank On Yourself.

And remember, Bank On Yourself will beat anyone’s best financial strategy or we’ll pay you $100,000!

No two policies are alike, because each one is tailored to the clients unique situation.  So your results will be different. To find out what your bottom-line numbers could be, and how your financial picture could improve if you added Bank On Yourself to your financial plan, you can request a free Bank On Yourself Analysis.  There’s no obligation.