3 Steps to a Financially Stress-Free Life

Has financial stress become the new normal for most of us?

If you’re feeling financial stress and worry, you’re not alone. But it’s not inevitable. You don’t have to panic about your present or agonize about the what-ifs in the future. In this blog post, I’ll share three time-tested keys to achieving financial peace of mind, so you can weather whatever curve balls life throws at you…

Step 1: Have a Sizeable Liquid Rainy Day Fund

Life happens, and we should all expect the unexpected. Without safe and liquid cash reserves, how will you cope with:

  • A medical emergency?
  • Disability?
  • A broken major appliance or leaky roof?
  • Loss of a job?
  • A family member needing assistance?

Without a sizeable liquid rainy day fund, you may be forced into selling or liquidating your nest egg assets prematurely—the investments you planned on keeping over the long haul. When this happens, the timing is often terrible. You’re at the mercy of current market conditions and forced to sell at the worst possible time.

Honestly? That’s how the majority of people live. Their fortunes depend on Wall Street, the Dow Jones, the next paycheck coming in. (Great Grandma at least had that old jelly jar filled with cash!)

But what if your financial pyramid looked like this?

[Read more…] “3 Steps to a Financially Stress-Free Life”

Bank On Yourself Dividend Paying Life Insurance vs Savings Account

We received dozens of insightful entries for our “Bank On Yourself vs. savings account” contest.  They confirmed – once again – that we have a whole bunch of very smart subscribers!

The contest even inspired one reader to write a poem!

I’ve been studying these topics full time for nearly a decade now, and even I learned some new things.  So, whether you use the Bank On Yourself method or not, or you consider yourself to be an expert or a novice at understanding money and finances, you should read this!

You will undoubtedly learn some things you didn’t already know!

There were so many great contest entries, it was really tough for our team to single out only the five best entries, and the winners of the iPod Touch, Amazon.com gift certificate and more are listed below.

The contest question was:  How is dividend-paying whole life insurance different from a savings account, besides the death benefit?

Our readers gave a dozen or so distinct, key differences between the two, and I’ll summarize a number of them in a moment.

However, I think one really critical advantage of a dividend-paying whole life policy wasn’t mentioned…

Many retirees today can’t stomach the volatility or unpredictability of investing in stocks and other traditional investments and were counting on their interest income from CD’s, money markets and savings accounts.
[Read more…] “Bank On Yourself Dividend Paying Life Insurance vs Savings Account”