Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group Podcast . Here we're all about breaking free from the 40 to 50 year work grind and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom . Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence .
We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions so you can share successes , ask questions and keep the momentum going .
Good evening everyone . This is Niyi Adewale with the Acabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast .
I'm so excited today to be joined by Tony Manganiello , who is an award-winning author and also a bestselling author that has written many books and has a new bestseller that is called Transforming Payments Into Prosperity , where he's helping a lot of individuals build wealth , get rid of debt and families start to take control of their finances .
Tony , thank you so much for joining us tonight .
Thank you so much for having me . I really appreciate . It Happy to be here .
Absolutely , absolutely . And when you start talking about financial freedom and helping people break the debt cycle , this is music to my ears and also our listeners . This is what we talk about on a week-to-week and really daily basis , and so the first thing that comes to mind for me is how did you even get started in this space ?
What did it look like coming up for you ?
Well , when I was a young kid , back in the 70s , my father and my father left our family and there was a lot of reasons why that was .
You know why he did that , but the reason that I found later in life that didn't help was the personal financial stress that everybody in the that he was under , and so after college and a number of other experiences as you probably we all have those I really began to figure out , or try to figure out .
Why is it that money can have such an impact on relationships ? That should go beyond money , and that's when I got into personal finance .
I've been doing this for about 30 years now and we've helped people eliminate debt and build wealth , and over the last 12 years , we found a way to do this where you're able to pay off debt and build wealth with the same dollars at the same time , and to me , that was a complete game changer . We totally modified our whole business .
The books I had written before I had found out about how this plan works they're still applicable , but I wrote the most recent book this year because it was everything I've learned over the last 12 years with got to be over a thousand consultations with consumers and people who are just trying to build a future , and so I decided I'm going to put all this stuff
down , because people need to know this , and that's basically what it was about , and I just want to make sure I can do what I can to help families survive . I mean , when was the last time a family sat down and said , hey , with all of our chaotic schedules and everything going on in life , you know , what really helps is being stressed out about money .
Nobody ever says that . You know so , but what happens is that other chaos when money problems are circling around . It just makes everything worse . So if we can turn the volume down on the money problems , then maybe families have a better chance of surviving and thriving , which is really what the goal is .
And Tony , that is an admirable goal and it's needed . When you look at the statistics , they say 50% of divorces are because of something financial . Right , yeah , financial stress is the main thing that leads to arguments , which leads to breakups , which is tearing families apart , and so what you're doing truly is a work that is needed .
And so when you look at even now right , this is one of the things that I was so excited to be able to connect with you on is because you are actively out there helping families kind of get their finances in control .
And when you look at what's happened even over the last 12 years since you've come up with this strategy , the wealth gap's gotten larger and larger , and it's gotten even more difficult to be able to just have one person working in the house . You really need two , and you really need to have your money working for you as well when you're not working .
And so I know you talk about escaping the payment matrix . Can you describe what the payment matrix ?
is Sure , you have your income . These days , money just gets direct deposited into what ? A checking account . And what do you use that checking account for ? To make your payments . What is the whole focus behind bringing in money ?
You got a budget right , and what the purpose of your budget is is to say , all right , I got this much coming in , I got to make all these payments . Oh , dear God , let me have something left over , right . And then , if you have something left over , you feel relief . You feel like , oh , I'm making it . That's the payment matrix .
92% of all hardworking Americans in this country today , according to the National Institute on Retirement Security , will never be able to quit working comfortably . What that means is that the lifestyle you enjoy while you're working , if you want that to continue into retirement , you can't stop working because they've used all of tomorrow's money .
Today , when you look at the debt to income ratios , if you've gotten a mortgage or if you've gone to any type of lending situation , they want to know what your debt to income ratio is . And they , they you know the infamous they they tell you that a 35% debt to income ratio or less is healthy . The question is healthy for who ?
Because when you calculate debt to income ratios , you use whatever your debt payments are and you divide that by your gross income . No one ever stops to think about how much do I have to . You know , because you're not making your payments with gross income , You're making it with net income .
So nobody ever stops to think how much do I have to gross to bring home enough money every year to just make my debt payments ? And what I've seen over the years is it's up to 50% or more of your gross income is already spent before you've earned it , because you've got to grow so much to bring home enough to make the payments .
And then you have these 15% credit cards , 8% , 7% car loans , 5% , 6% , 4% mortgages . Those percentages are only used to calculate your payment , but they never tell you how much of your payment is going to interest . And on average it's up to 50% or more . And so what I come ?
I remember I was at a consultation probably about four years ago , and the thought came to me when I was talking to one of my clients . I said you know , just because you can make your payments doesn't mean you can afford them .
And the reason I came up with that was because who can afford to have half of their gross income spent , before they earn it , on payments that are costing them 50% or more in interest . No one can .
But the payment matrix makes you think it's okay , and that's why 92% of the people that are working in this country will never be able to quit working and maintain the standard of living . And to me , when I'm working with my clients , I like to look at what their needs are today .
In the back of my mind , I'm always thinking I call it the vulnerability scale . It's our age the older we get , the more vulnerable we become . And retirement's like a cliff . Everyone's heading for it , and I just want to help people turn and stare away from it as much as possible . The earlier you can start , the easier it is to turn .
You get to be up to around my age . You got to start slamming on the brakes , you know . But no , that's the point is that the payment matrix gives you that false sense of security , because people budget , and budgeting is one thing I try to teach people not to do .
Because budgeting , in my opinion , what it does is it unknowingly applies the wrong purpose to your income . I mean , think about it . You budget because you want to say , hey , I got all this money coming in and I want to be able to make my payments . So what you're basically saying is the purpose of my income is to make my payments . That's wrong .
The purpose of your income from your work or your career needs to be to replace the income from your work or career , and understanding how cash flow works is how you get to do that work on that ultimate goal . Understand cash flow right now .
With a payment matrix , checking account and all this other stuff that people do , it's just flowing through and out of your account and gone forever . We teach people do . It's just flowing through and out of your account and gone forever .
We teach people how to begin to redirect some of that cash flow back to you so that , ultimately , you can become your own funding source . You can be the banker , because those bankers aren't doing the stuff we're doing with our money .
We need to help people do , and that's what we're here for is to help people learn how to be their own banker , how they do the same type of investing , the same type of savings that banks do , and even finance their own car purchases , their own education , and make a profit on those loans , and that's where the paradigm shift really comes in .
And Tony , you are speaking my language and the language of all those that are listening with the Financial Freedom Group , and so one of the things that I've noticed as well , and we have some people that are international , that are within our group and this is , at least in my opinion , more uniquely a US thing Outside this country , I don't know that this credit
card dilemma exists as much as it does here , and it's really taken over .
Yeah , well , that's because we're the richest nation in history and the working class people have always been taken advantage of . They are always . I mean , when you think about the gross domestic product , it's something like around $20 trillion a year . That's crazy . Well , where's that coming from ? You know , people talk about the rich people , that the 1% .
They're not where all that money's coming from . It's the guys like the people I help . It's guys like us who are out there just trying to live a life and they don't know that we're being sucked dry financially , like you know , the matrix in the movie , where you know that you're just this little energy pod , the little battery .
Well , all we are to the payment matrix is a little battery of income , cash flow , and the cash flows all to the banks , all to the insurance companies , all in the wrong way . And i'm'm here to say you know what ? Let's flip the script on that . Let's teach you how to do what they do , and then you'll see some big changes in your life .
Absolutely , and we want to dive into some of the nitty gritty here , and so one of the things that you talk about is the dual duty dollar right , being able to save some money while also having those dollars work for you . And so what are some examples , or what do you mean by that ?
Well , first of all , that comes from something I realized a number of years ago . When people are looking at the dollars they have in their possession and they're checking account , for instance , how many things can you do with those dollars at the same time ? One thing you can pay a bill today or you could put it away for tomorrow . That's kind of like .
If you're familiar with the movie Sophie's Choice , it's kind of like you know , I call it the Sophie's Choice for your dollar , right , it's like well , you know what , today is the nasty now and now I'm just going to kick the can for tomorrow down the road and that's just what happens . That's why 92% of the people can never quit working .
Well , when you can do more than one thing with a dollar , that changes everything , because now you can take care of today's necessities and needs while those same dollars are working for tomorrow's reality that cliff you're heading for .
And so , as an example , when you start to redirect your cash flow , the way we teach eventually over the course of it and it's not something that happens overnight that requires discipline , commitment . Fortunately , it's also flexible and we've got it all figured out to help people get there as best as they can , but you eventually get to a place .
So let's say , if you want to buy a car I use in the book an example of buying a $30,000 car Now you can go into the financial interrogation at the finance department at the dealership or you can save up money , right , people will buy cash , buy cars with cash , and that's a slightly better thing .
But both ways you wind up with a payment right , because you've either financing it and you got that payment every month , or you got to start replenishing that account you just bought your car with , because cars don't last as long as they used to . Well , I guess they've never really lasted that long to begin with . But so the payment problem is still there .
When you use the type of strategy we teach , what happens is you go and you borrow the money from yourself and you're able to do it . The rate that we are able to get , which we've been doing for about 10 years is about 5% , and the money is also earning 4% .
And people will say well , tony , if I'm paying 5% interest but I'm only earning 4% , how am I not losing money ?
And the answer to that question is understanding how the volume of interest dollars works , because as you make your payments every month , you're paying interest on an ever-decreasing balance and as your money is just growing every month , it's growing on an increasing balance .
And in the example I give in the book , in month 13 of the five-year payment plan for a car which is what a lot of people do , month 13 , you start earning more interest than you're paying and when it's all said and done , you wind up net profit $2,600 on the car that you bought and you got the car , as opposed to losing all that interest to some finance
company or taking the 30 grand out and then starting to put it back . Now the 30,000 isn't working for you .
So when you can do the same thing with each , you know the two things at the same time with your dollar . It changes your financial trajectory , and this is something that's not talked about . It's almost like a secret that's out there that I'm happy that you are bringing to light , and so I got a couple of questions that pop up with that right .
So how are you doing this ? What vehicle are you investing in ? That's kind of pulling it from yourself .
And this is the crazy thing okay , because I've been in personal finance since the late 80s and back when I was in personal finance , I started in life insurance . Life insurance if you're sitting on a plane and there's a chatty Kathy next to you , that is really like chatting it up and you're like I really could use some silence .
Just say , hey , you know what I do for a living , I sell life insurance . And oh really , you'll see , you know the silence will be deafening . But what I discovered 12 years ago was that everybody's buying life insurance wrong and that's why nobody likes it . And what I mean by that is you buy life insurance . What's the thought in your mind ?
When you die .
Yeah , what will my loved ones get when I die , right ? But and the premise of that is very noble and very important because you're looking to protect your family against loss of income , right ? Well , are you the only one in that equation looking to protect themselves against loss of income ? You know who else is the insurance company .
That's why they don't just hand out life insurance contracts like nothing . You have to go through underwriting , they're going to draw blood , they're going to take samples , they're going to do all that stuff . You're going to get poked and prodded . Why do they do that ? Because they want to make sure . If they're going to , especially like with a term policy .
If you get a half million dollar term , 20 year term policy where it's 30 bucks a month , how much are you putting up towards that half million ? At most , 7,200 . You think the insurance company is going to risk a half a million dollars . Unless they're supremely confident , you're not going anywhere , at least with regard to natural causes .
No .
So what we do is we say you know what People buy insurance wrong and they say what will my loved ones get when I die ? And they're not realizing the insurance company is making sure that you're circling the sun a couple dozen years or so before that happens . You're circling the sun a couple dozen years or so before that happens .
So the question you need to ask yourself when you buy life insurance is what will a contract do for me while I'm alive ? Since if they offer me a contract , I'm probably going to be around for a while , and that's where the difference plays .
Instead of buying death benefit and taking the premium dollars , what we do is we transform how you spend your premium dollars and we buy cash value as much as the IRS will allow us to buy . Because the IRS stepped in in the 80s and they passed a bunch of laws because rich guys were saying to their planners oh , I got an extra hundred grand a year .
Where can I tax shelter it ? They'd be like you know what Put in a life insurance contract ? Rich would be like in fact , I need life insurance for him , rich . And the advisor would tell him it's because life insurance is a tax haven .
But in the 80s , they found out that this was going on and they changed the rules so that you have to have a certain amount of ratio of death benefit to cash value as it grows . So we do all that math and we make sure that we're buying as much cash value as we can that way . When do you need your death benefit ?
One time right , and it's usually people are living even into their 90s . Now , have you ever bought ? Well , obviously we can't say we bought life insurance at 90 years old because we're not there yet . But if you ever try to , you're not going to be able to buy it or it's going to be way too expensive in the 70s and your 80s .
Well , we build a contract that gives you the cash value from day one , because we're buying cash value as much as we can , and it's building month to month or year by year , depending on how you pay your premium and that money is accessible .
The key thing about life insurance contracts is they tell you you can borrow the money , but you need the right kind of insurance company , the right kind of contract , to make sure it's doing all the things that needs to be done , and explain that in the book , and that's what we focus on .
We're like hey , listen , you get offered a contract , you're not going anywhere for a while , unless they T-bone you at the intersection on the way home from work . And if you do , you'll still have a decent . Because we do use term insurance to get the boost of death benefit , to comply with the IRS rules , because it's not expensive .
But we're putting the majority of your premium dollars right into the cash value and that the insurance company says , hey , you know what you want to borrow from that . If you have the right type of contract with the right bells and whistles , you can do it . And they don't ask you for an application . There's no credit check .
All you do is go online and request the loan and the money shows up in your account . And the one thing that blows people away I get this question all the time what will my payment be on a loan of this much ? Because when was the last time you took out a loan and you didn't know what the payment would be before you took it out ?
The insurance company doesn't care if you pay it back . Now there are some people who do this business and they say they promote that , like you know , take out loans and never pay it back . Those are people who really don't understand how this stuff works .
When you're working , during your working lifetime , as you build up this cash value , it's a recyclable amount reservoir of cash and you borrow it to do what you need to do pay for college , go on a vacation , whatever it might be and then you pay it back like you would any other third-party bank . That way , the money is there .
When you want to stop working , you can say you know what , I'm going to turn off my premium if you want , and there's so much cash value it becomes self-sustaining . You can take money off to live in retirement and , just like any other retirement fund , you've got to make sure you don't spend it all in one place , and we teach how to do that .
And then , if you pass away at 85 years old , you still have a death benefit and you haven't been paying for it for years because we front load the contract with so much cash value that when you do need it , it's self-sustaining and you don't even have to pay a premium and your loved ones are still taken care of .
That is incredible , and the way that you've just explained it and the fact that you have resources around to help other people break it down simply is important , right , because I think we've all , to your point , been on that plane or at least had somebody in your network that's an insurance agent .
And they start talking through this and they're talking about all these annuities and , hey , we got whole life , we got term . And it starts to confuse you and your eyes glaze over . But the way you've just described it sounds like an awesome benefit . One of the things that you touched on that .
I've been having a lot of conversations recently and , for those who've been listening for a while , they know that I used to be in medical device sales before moving into full-time real estate as a realtor and real estate professional , and one of the reasons I did that was for tax benefits .
Right , there was many years where I was paying six figure checks to the IRS . I was like man , this is nuts , how do I reduce this ?
And kind of tax haven that way , and so I chose a bit of that real estate path , and also we've advised certain clients to do some of the short-term rental loopholes for tax savings , things of that nature , but this seems like it could be another way to save people taxes .
Are there maximum amounts you can contribute and what does this look like from a tax savings standpoint ?
Where the tax advantages come , where what we like to tell people . I like to say we're going to move you from tax me now to tax me never . Because life insurance is tax-free . You can access it tax-free . It grows tax-free when you pass on and you leave the death benefit to your loved ones . That's tax-free . The money you're putting in is after-tax dollars .
So it goes into this tax-free environment and for people in real estate . What's really cool about using these types of accounts , these types of policies for real estate investing , is , if you had to flip a house , you might need , if you have enough of a reservoir of cash .
You go online , say I need 30 grand , I need to get into this house , and it's going to take 8 , 12 , 16 months who knows how long before you flip it , you got to do the work in it . A lot of people go get a bridge loan and you're just oh , please , god , let me sell this property , let me get all the work in it .
A lot of people go get a bridge loan and you're just oh , please , god , let me sell this property , let me get all the work done before I have to start making too many of those payments the insurance company doesn't even ask you for a payment .
You can just take out the loan , get the property flipped and what you'll do is you'll accrue a very small amount of interest every month , but then , when you sell the property , pay back the loan . And when you pay back the loan , it's not money that's disappearing .
What you just did is put it back into your recyclable reservoir of cash and you pocket the difference , and you didn't have to worry about stressing out over some bridge loan payment that you would have had to make if you went to the bank down the street .
Wow , yeah , and to that point that is so real for the people that are listening , because we're doing flips , we're doing rehabs and we're in you know , usually using hard money , that's , charging anywhere from 12 , 15 , sometimes 20% plus .
Yeah , to be able to have , you know , this money really coming back to you and be able and you can even do hard money lending with this , with these accounts . You know , if you start building , you can . We teach people arbitrage . You know if you're you're saying people are spending , you're paying 10 , 15 , 20 percent .
The highest I think the loan rate ever got on the policies we work with , I think , was 5.67 , and that was just over the last year when all this crazy stuff in the economy was going . Up until then it was 5% for like a dozen years . Now it's back down to 5% and it'll probably stay there where it's been for the most part .
So if you want to lend somebody 50 grand , you take out the loan , you charge them whatever the going rate is and you're only paying 5% or somewhere in that vicinity . And if you're charging 15% , that's all profit .
This is pretty cool . This is definitely something that I'm personally going to export . I know you're going to get hit up by a lot of people from our community , but I wanted to ask just two more questions before transitioning to opening this up to an open session For those that are listening live and throwing questions in the chat .
We're going to jump to that here shortly and we're going to give you an opportunity to connect with Tony as well . But the first piece is we talked about it a little bit upfront , but going to that retirement piece , right , what does this look like when you retire ? If you've made the right moves , you've built up that reservoir .
Now you're retired , how do you tap into this wealth that you've ?
built up . That's really simple . So in the book I give an example of I call the family , the Fortunato family . I'm Italian , so it's got to be a Fortunato . So they're 35 , they start young and they have a couple of kids and they're thinking you know , we really need to start planning for our future .
And so they have the choice of doing the traditional route with the 401k , you know , putting the money in and you can't access it at all and it's tied up until 50 . Yeah , you might be able to take a loan out , but if you do , then maybe it's all kinds of squirrely stuff or you can use this strategy . So the family uses this strategy .
They make a 110 grand a year as a household . You know , a little above average , but I like to tell people that I talk with everybody I talk with is above average . So they're making a little bit extra , but they only have $600 left over when they pay all their bills , all their debt .
They have over $3,100 a month in debt payments that are costing them $1,600 a month in interest of that 3,100 . And they have to gross of their income it's 47% of their income is being grossed to just pay the 3,100 and change a month .
So , instead of doing the 600 bucks towards the traditional plan , they decide to start working with what we call private family banking . They re-divert that money into this environment and while they're doing it , they're paying off their debts . Doing that , they're completely debt-free in nine years and three months and they have $67,000 inside their policy .
So what do you do when you've got the $3,100 freed up ? I mean , if you were just going to continue to make the payments , you continue making payments . They decide to double down and take the 3,100 and start another one . By the time they reach age 65 , they got $1.4 million in cash value and over $700,000 in death benefit on top of that .
They've taken that and they've gotten over $2.1 million in estate value for their family . And they decide well , there's some formulas , you go in and we work some magic in the numbers . They say you know what ? What can I get for the next 25 years if I want to start budgeting right From that amount ? They could take over $80,000 a year for 25 years .
And guess what ? That 80 grand is tax-free because it's coming from a life insurance contract . So they could , you know , when they go into the 401ks . We all know what happens with that I mean you've probably . I would imagine that you're feeling the same way I do . I used to be one of those mutual fund guys .
You know , they say you know , if you put this money on your way and they 12% and they give it . They put that into context of XYZ mutual fund If you put 10 grand in 20 years ago , it would be worth this much . That's 17% . Let's project it just 12 . And you're thinking , well , that seems reasonable . Well , that's oh gosh , it's priced something .
I can't remember what the phrase is , but they're doing something to make it seem like it's reasonable when it's not . Dalbar Inc is a company that has done research on the average investor people like us who put money in 401ks and if they're lucky , they get 7% over 30 years .
So if they did get the 7% in their 401k , they would have around 700 grand as opposed to 1.4 million . And then when they start taking it out , guess what ? They pay taxes on it and while it was growing they couldn't access it to use things for their daily life and they've been paying debt payments all the time .
Most people don't understand the importance of entering retirement debt-free Because if half of your income , your gross income , at a hundred grand a year . If half of that you got a gross 50 to bring home , you know your 34% debt to income ratio , debt payments . That means you're living off of half of your income .
So if you enter retirement debt-free , you could live on the same standard of living with half the gross income . And then when we get involved , we're talking tax-free income and it's almost like they're getting a step up , because now they don't have to work and they've got almost the same cash value , if not cashflow or more , to enjoy during retirement .
And that's the thing that gets me is because it's not like people aren't generating wealth . Everybody thinks they have to generate more wealth . The average individual is going to make around $2.7 million during their working lifetime . The only reason they don't have anything to show for it is they've been using all that tomorrow money today .
No one showed them how the numbers work and they wind up broke . They wind up at that cliff and they're hitting the brakes and they're swinging the . You know they're pulling the parking brake . They're trying to do everything before they go over the cliff . And that's where this philosophy comes in , because it's not the sophie's choice for a dollar , it's .
I can use this today , I can you while it's working for tomorrow , and I can get the best of both worlds .
And what you just said is spot on right . I get nervous about some of the future generations because it's getting tougher and tougher to even afford just the standard living right Like .
It used to be a lot cheaper to just go out and buy gas and groceries and things of that nature , and especially over the last five years we've seen that accelerate in cost and so there's a lot less room . You really have to be hyper-focused and make sure that every dollar that you make is getting put to use so that you can retire right .
You don't want to get to age 60 , 65 , and then start to try to figure it out . And the hardest thing to do is what you just mentioned . It's a little bit of delayed gratification . But this takes some of that off , some of the steam off , because you can still actually use some of those funds . And so what's the major risk here ?
Right , I always want to get the pros , but also , what do you see as the con or potential risk to doing this method ?
You know that's the funny thing , because we're not dealing in the stock market . We're dealing with a completely different platform Insurance companies , especially the right kind , mutual insurance companies . I don't know if you know the difference , but a mutual insurance company is owned by the policyholders .
They don't sell stock and so when they make a profit , guess who gets a share of the profit ? The policyholders . So you're like a silent partner in their business . And the companies we work with are multi-billion dollar , highly rated . We did our homework to make sure and I'm doing this too I want to make sure I'm not .
I like to go to bed at night and sleep like a baby , not worrying about all this stuff . So the focus is to be able to just have a platform . It's not going to get rich quick overnight , it's get rich quick slowly .
And if there is a caveat and we've already kind of experienced it with the COVID thing over the last few years , when I had clients that were in the plan and because we spend their premium dollars differently and let's say they're making a $500 a month payment , I've had gosh , probably about half a dozen clients during that time .
It was a lot less than I thought it would be , but they would email me saying , tony , I think I got to cancel my policy and I was like , don't forget your $500 payment .
It's flexible because the money going into the cash value is technically an optional premium and because 60% or more of that is going into that rider , they could reduce their payment by more than 60% to keep the policy afloat until they get back on their feet . I had one client that during the COVID era he had to cancel his policy .
It was because he just started building a second restaurant . He had a restaurant going really well in the Chicagoland area and he was putting a ton of money into his policy and COVID hit and he was telling me Tony , they won't even let me have 50 , they won't let me have more than 50% people in my . I can't make any money .
I think he wound up going out of business . So you know , that's just like with anything . Really , the only limitations are the resources that the client has available and the parameters that we're working with .
But typically , compared to the alternatives and this is the funny thing is people they'll start learning about this strategy and they start having this fantasy about well , maybe if I did this , would they do that . It's like whoa , whoa . This is put your feet on the ground . It is pretty powerful , but it's not going to make you rich overnight .
It's basically saying , over the next 10 , 20 years , I have that much gross income coming in , I'm going to bring home hundreds of thousands of dollars . How much of that can I keep ?
And that's really what the focus is , because I tell people the reason you making payments doesn't mean you can afford them is because , if you could , you'd be sitting on a pile of cash . Right now . I haven't met many people sitting on piles of cash because they've been thinking oh , my budget , I'm making my payments .
And that's why I decided to call the book Transforming Payments into Prosperity , Because it's not that they have , it's not really so much a payment problem , it's a who gets the payment problem and when you're the one you're making payments back to . That's how you redirect your cash flow .
But you can't do that in the traditional means and the traditional platforms that people are used to , and that's why I call it the payment matrix .
And that's an awesome name for the book . A hundred percent agree . And Tony , before we open it up to the rest of the group and allow others to join and ask questions and throw questions in the chat , where can people get the book ? Also , I know you do consultative work with different families and individuals . How can they tap into that as well ?
If you want to get a copy of the book , you go to Amazon and just search for Transforming Payments into Prosperity . Or , if you want , we have an ebook that's a little bit less expensive and you can go to prosperitysmartestwealthcom .
And if you're looking to , you know , if you want to talk with me and my calendars on my site , you can go to tonysmartestwealthcom , and you know , I've got some resources out there for you . And if you just want to get on my calendar , it's all set up to you know , hopefully . I mean my calendar is kind of crazy but I do my best to accommodate .
I do have a team of people that work with me . So if we can't get you on my calendar , there's people I've personally trained that know how the stuff works .
Absolutely , and we're going to put all these links into the show notes and we'll make sure we push it out to our group for those that want to connect . But we're going to open this thing up . Is there anybody who is on live ? Please feel free to click that join live button at the bottom .
I already see questions in the chat that I'm going to kick this off with . But feel free to join live and or ask questions in the chat and we will kick this thing off for the next 10 minutes or so .
And so , tony , first question is so we talked about the self-finance piece , so why not just put it into a high yield savings account where you can earn 4% to 5% ? Why put it into the insurance piece ?
Well , if you put it into a high yield savings account and then you use it , it's not earning interest anymore . So that's really the reason . That's the idea behind why not pay cash for a car , because once you take that $30,000 out and buy the car , or whatever the amount is , that's no longer working for you .
So the idea is that's where the dual duty dollar comes in . It's where you can use the money today while it continues working for tomorrow , and you don't have to look at your dollar like your . You know Sophie's got to pick between her one or her two kids , who she's taken , and you she's going to the camp with . That's .
The biggest difference is that you're able to use the money while it's still earning interest and dividends for the future .
That makes a lot of sense and I'm going to kick it over to Justin . What other questions you got ?
Hey , Tony , First of all thank you for taking the time to do this , man . Great stuff . I was definitely tuned in here . I heard you mentioned family banking earlier . Is that the concept that the Rothschild family invented ?
Well , that's interesting that you bring that up In the book . I have a part where it's myths and realities . The Rothschilds they actually started real banks . Okay , and I actually looked into . There was a time a number of years ago where I realized you know , I want to be a nice bank and I was going to start one .
I flew out to the East coast , met with some people and when I got done I was like you know , I don't think I'll have any internal organs left by the time they take them all to get this thing started .
But when it comes to the private family banking that we teach , using an insurance platform , it's the easiest way where you can mimic what the Roth Childs did . But they used actual banks . I mean they , you know they .
That's a different platform , but the idea is the same because it's putting money into a platform that you can access while it's still working for tomorrow . That's the biggest thing . People they think you can work for money or money can work for you .
Problem is , when you're in debt , money's working against you , and so we got to get out of debt and we can do that simultaneously Pay off debt and build tax-free wealth with the same dollars at the same time , because really , what's at risk is , whatever that debt payment is , that total you're making every month .
That's the amount of money I want to see you liberate , because that should be yours Right now . It's the interest and the way the numbers work . It's just totally unfair . So you got to work towards liberating that total amount of cash that you're paying every month . And when you do that ?
I mean , just imagine if you didn't have a car payment , if you have a mortgage payment now . Imagine not having to make that . Imagine no credit card payments .
Imagine that when you needed to go on vacation , you went online and , yeah , you put it on a credit card because you know you're getting the points right and you're getting the whatever else they're doing .
But when you get back from vacation , you go online , take the money out of your private family bank , pay off the credit card and then just pay yourself back the same payment you would have made anyway . That is allowing you to keep cash flowing back towards your resources as opposed to the bank's . Does that make sense ?
It's always very interesting , right . You meet people from all different walks of life , and there's a lot of people out there , especially on social media . Now you can hide behind like a lens and things of that nature that get so angry at folks for , oh , this person's not paying X amount in taxes . I have to pay X amount .
When you realize that we're all in the same game right , that has the same rules across the board you start to want to learn different methods like these , because this is how the wealthy are staying wealthy , right ? The example I think about in a completely different realm is Elon Musk with Tesla .
Right , he could be taking a salary , but he's like no , I want to take it in stock .
He did this way back when , and now the stock's going up in value and he's taking loans against stock to live life , but you're not paying taxes on those loans because they're loans , right , and they're loaning because the value of Tesla keeps going up , so he's keeping all that in there going up .
And it's similar thing here , right , you just got to start early and kind of build it up over time .
Yeah , and that's the reason people think they can't do it , because they see people . I'm not Elon Musk , he's like the real life , tony Stark , I can't do that . Well , you don't have to . Just in the second chapter of the book . It's called who do you think you are ?
And what I talk about is most people what they think of themselves as they look at their personal finances through what I call the budgeting lens what's coming in , what's going out , what's left over ? You know what the payment matrix looks at you as the multimillionaire you are in the making . They're looking at your life .
It's called a lifetime value , how much total income you'll generate during your working lifetime . And they see the two or $3 million and they're like , hmm , how can I get as much of that as I can ? And they're doing it really . They're doing a great job of it , and so we have to begin to think of ourselves differently . You got to be thinking of yourself .
You know what . I don't feel like it , but I am a millionaire in the making and I think I need to change about the way I feel . Because if I am , why am I allowing everyone else to profit off of my I like to say my blood sweat and years of work .
And Tony , I have one last question and then kind of a statement so what is it ? So once you set this up , does it kind of become automated ? Is it something that you have to keep looking back into ? Or , once you kind of set it , you can kind of forget it and you just let it continue to grow as you move forward throughout life ?
Yeah , basically it's just like a normal life insurance policy . If you pay an annual , you just make one payment a year . If you're paying it monthly , it just comes out of your account . The difference is we're putting as much cash into the cash value from day one .
So the cash value is growing by hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars a year and as it begins to compound and you get dividends and more interest , you've got tens of thousands of dollars in there and if you ever wanted to access it , I've done it all the time . You know , go online and say you know .
For instance , you know when I had to put a nuke tires on my car last year , have you seen the price of tires lately ? I was like $700 . And it was like I'm trying to . You know I have seven kids , so I'm like you know I don't want to . You know , go , I don't . I'm pretty frugal when it comes . I'm driving a 10 or eight year old minivan that has .
You know it's paid for and I'm like you know what . I signed up . I'm like you know what . I'm not going to use my money the way everybody else does . I put it on credit , got the tires installed , went home .
No , Tony , I think that is spot on . We appreciate you for joining us tonight and sharing some of your knowledge . I'm definitely one that's going to be one getting the book , but two setting up some time so that we can talk through this in more detail , and I can't wait for the rest of the community that wasn't able to join live to hear this as well .
Tony , thank you for joining us tonight , Absolutely , and for everybody listening . Come on now . Thank you , Tony , and for those that are listening , if you like this episode , go ahead and leave a comment for our guy Tony . Go ahead and like , subscribe and we will definitely put on more , Tony . Thank you , See ya .
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