Personal Finance Blog for Retirement and Investment Advice

How Your Credit Score Affects Your Life – Another Reason to Fire Your Banker

June 11th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

I just got something in the mail that made me madder than a mosquito in a mannequin factory.

It ought to tick you off, too, and give you some really good reasons to fire your banker. Here’s the scoop…

I just got a bill from our auto insurance company – one of the biggies which shall remain nameless, for now.

They informed us that our premium was jacked up because of information they got from consumer reports.

Specifically, they cited information they obtained on li’l ole me (gasp!) about my “percent balance to high credit for bank revolving accounts reported in the last 6 months.”

Yeah, I know it sounds like gibberish, but here’s what really ticked me off…

I show people how to fire banks and finance companies and become their own banker! [Read more…] “How Your Credit Score Affects Your Life – Another Reason to Fire Your Banker”

Read These Bank On Yourself Reviews from Actual Clients

April 30th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

These Bank On Yourself reviews aren’t based merely on theory. They report the actual results of Bank On Yourself clients.

Bank On Yourself is a financial strategy based on high cash value dividend-paying whole life insurance. Bank On Yourself-type policies enjoy guaranteed growth and are carefully designed to create maximum cash value and flexibility. This allows policy owners to take loans against their life insurance policies while still experiencing the same growth on their money – just as if they hadn’t touched a dime of it!

Here are the Bank On Yourself reviews of two of our hundreds of thousands of happy Bank On Yourself clients …

Steady Growth of His Savings Replaces a Rocky Ride for Bank On Yourself Reviewer

Dan Proskauer is an engineer with a graduate degree from Cornell University, the highest-rated engineering school in the Ivy League. Dan works for a major healthcare company, and he holds three U.S. patents.

Dan is a sophisticated investor. He lives below his means, and he’s disciplined about saving for the future. But after the financial crashes of 2000 and 2008, Dan realized he had nothing to show for decades of saving and investing his hard-earned money and “doing all the right things.” [Read more…] “Read These Bank On Yourself Reviews from Actual Clients”

The Financial Shock that Can KILL You

April 25th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

Middle-aged Americans who experience a major economic blow are more likely to die during the years that follow than those who don’t.

That’s according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Shockingly, those who experienced a devastating financial loss – called a “wealth shock” – have a 50% greater risk of dying early. And it doesn’t matter how much money you had to start.

How likely are you to experience a wealth shock?

About 1 in 4 people in the study have had a wealth shock, averaging a loss of about $100,000. Often it was a result of a drop in the value of retirement investments or a home foreclosure.

Some shocks happened during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Some happened before or after that.

But it didn’t matter if the economy was good or bad – a wealth shock still increased the chance of dying early.

The findings suggest a wealth shock is as dangerous as a new diagnosis of heart disease, says Dr. Alan Garber of Harvard University. Another expert noted that,

We should be doing everything we can to prevent people from experiencing wealth shocks.”

See Testimonials and Reviews About Bank On Yourself on Our YouTube Playlist

April 11th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

In their own personal YouTube reviews of Bank On Yourself, actual users of the Bank On Yourself strategy describe the different ways they use this flexible tried-and-true financial resource. We’ve collected some of these reviews in our YouTube Bank On Yourself Reviews Playlist.

Perhaps you want to be able to seize an unexpected opportunity that requires ready cash, or pay off student and credit card debt, take a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, finance the purchase of an automobile, or even underwrite the crowdsourcing of a church major fundraising campaign. These Bank On Yourself reviewers tell you how they did it.

And just as they did, you’ll find that borrowing against the cash value of your permanent life insurance policy is a quick, affordable, and simple way to get the cash you need in just a few short days, with no questions asked.

Bank On Yourself Reviewer Uses a Policy Loan to Help Fund a Last-Minute Adoption

Will Your Money Last as Long as You Do?

April 5th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

Too many people determine how long they think they’ll live based on arbitrary factors.

And nearly half of pre-retirees and retirees underestimate how long they’ll live by five years or more, according to surveys by the Society of Actuaries.

That’s a big problem when it comes to making sure your money lasts as long as you do.

And very few people surveyed understand how variable life expectancy can be: Whatever the statistics say is the average life span for someone of your age and gender, you have a 50% chance of living longer than that age.

In other words, planning for living to an “average life expectancy” is a recipe for disaster!

By age 65, men in average health have a 40% chance of living to age 85, and women have more than a 50% chance.

And if you’re healthier than average, well now you’ve got a 50% chance of living to age 85 if you’re a man, and a 62% chance if you’re a woman.

Of those turning 65 today, 25% will live past 90, and one out of 10 will live past 95, according to the Social Security Administration.

What if you’re the lucky one who hangs on until 100 or longer? You don’t know for sure, do you? But just how “lucky” will you feel if you can’t provide for yourself in those final years?

My 95-year-old mother-in-law lives in an assisted-living facility in Arizona. When her husband died, she got a life insurance settlement and has been receiving a nice pension payout every year. [Read more…] “Will Your Money Last as Long as You Do?”

How to Pay Zero Taxes in Retirement – Without Being Broke

March 27th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

Do you have money in a tax-deferred retirement account such as a 401(k), IRA or 403(b)? If so, you’re sitting on a tax time bomb.

I’m going to reveal the tax traps you face and show you how to move toward a 0% tax bracket in retirement (legally!) – but not by doing it the way most people do it, which is by being broke!

Conventional wisdom says, “Maximize your contributions to tax-deferred plans. Your money compounds without being reduced by taxes, and you’ll end up with more money during retirement.”

But like much conventional wisdom about personal finance, it’s not true…

The Society of Actuaries says if the tax rates are the same,

It doesn’t make any difference whether [the taxes] are taken away from you at the beginning (tax-exempt) or at the end (tax-deferred). It’s the same fraction of your money that is left to you.”

But most people look at their savings and think it’s all theirs. You may have forgotten you’ll owe Uncle Sam the taxes he let you defer all those years – on every penny you’ve put in and every penny of growth.

And according to Boston College’s Center for Retirement director, Alicia Munnell,

It’s a very big deal when people realize they only have two-thirds or three-quarters of what they thought they had.”

If the tax rates are actually lower during your retirement, you might come out ahead by deferring your taxes. But where do you think tax rates are headed long term? You must consider what tax rates might be during a retirement that could last 30+ years.

Most people we talk to think taxes ultimately must go up due to the aging demographics of our country and our unsustainable national debt. (Recently the debt passed $21 trillion for the first time.) If tax rates do go up, and you’re successful in growing your nest-egg, you’ll simply end up paying higher taxes on a bigger number. [Read more…] “How to Pay Zero Taxes in Retirement – Without Being Broke”

Four Years after Publication, This New York Times Best-Seller on Bank On Yourself Still Generates Rave Reviews on Amazon

March 20th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | Leave a Comment

Picture of the Bank On Yourself Revolution book cover

Pamela Yellen’s book, The Bank On Yourself Revolution, hit the bookstores in 2014. It was an overnight sensation, landing on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, Amazon.com (where it was a #1 bestseller), and USA Today.

Shoppers on the world’s largest bookstore, Amazon.com, have consistently praised all of Pamela Yellen’s books … and this one is no exception.

And in fact, nearly 80% of reviewers have given Pamela Yellen’s Bank On Yourself Revolution a 4-star or 5-star review. Many also used glowing terms to describe their personal experiences with the Bank On Yourself concept.

Why is the Bank On Yourself concept receiving so much positive attention from Americans interested in a secure financial future? We’ve sifted through Amazon’s book reviews to find the answers. (All reviews are quoted verbatim, except for spelling and grammatical corrections and minor edits for clarity.)

According to Amazon Reviewer “Valentine,” Bank On Yourself Is “The Best Lifelong Safe and Guaranteed Wealth-Building Strategy Everyone Can Employ”

Why is the “Father of the 401(k)” Now Putting His Money into a Bank On Yourself-Type Plan Instead?

March 12th, 2018 by Pamela Yellen | 2 Comments

It caused quite a stir when the man who is credited with being the “father of the 401(k),” Ted Benna, recently announced that he’s put a substantial part of his own money – “probably the biggest part of my wealth” – into what is most commonly known as a Bank On Yourself plan.

You see, for at least six years now, Benna has been calling the 401(k) a “monster” that “should be blown up.”

Benna is credited with finding a way to capitalize on the tax code to create a way for working men and women to supplement the pension plans that many workers used to have. Those pensions plans have been disappearing, and 401(k)s were created to hopefully help pick up the slack.

But over the years, Benna watched Wall Street and Big Business pervert the 401(k) in ways he couldn’t possibly predict.

In a recent interview, Ted Benna discussed three reasons why we should be very leery of 401(k)s and IRAs:

The government may repeal the 401(k) and IRA, so you won’t be able to put any more money pre-tax into these accounts, or the amount you can put in will be drastically reduced (Congress considered doing that again last year!)
Benna believes the next stock and bond market crash is imminent and could wipe out 40% of the typical portfolio
Wall Street has hijacked these plans, and the excessive fees charged by mutual fund companies and plan administrators are robbing you of up to half of your nest egg