Something you may not know about me is that I love wine. I love grapevines, and I love the natural magic where grapes turn in to wine. One of the ways I celebrate this is right here at my office. Right next to our parking lot one of the very first things that we did when we bought our commercial space 20 years ago was to put two grapevines because I just love the magic of grapes turning into wine. A little-known fact you might not know is that I have actually entered, over the years, in to wine making contests at the Wisconsin state fair. Twice, taking second-class finishes. Once, a third-class, but never quite the first-class. Maybe that’s something in the future that I can hope to get.
The reason I’m talking about grapevines today is that I want to talk about grafting. In fact, I was reminded of this recently with a story about the olive trees in Italy. There is a certain pest and fungus that is killing the olive tress of Italy, and the farmers are fearful that they might lose trees, millions of trees, to this pest. The researchers have discovered that if they graft a certain olive tree on to the root system that is already there, the graft will take, and the trees will live on. Now, the farmers have not wanted to do this because they’ve said ‘our trees are special, we don’t want to change the trees’, but if they don’t make the change, they might lose all of their olive trees.
The same thing happened in the state of California some years back. There was a certain pest that was killing all the grapevines along California, and they found if they used a certain vine and grafted it in to the root system that was already there so it would become part of the new plant, it would actually become resistant to this parasite.
I want to talk about grafting today regarding your 401K. When people look at 401Ks, just like these grapevines here, they’re looking at the potential fruit for their future. During the summer months these grapes go from small, green beads to eventually being very colorful and filled with juice and potentially can become a new bottle of wine if it goes through that process, but it takes time for that to occur. The same thing happens with a 401K, traditional IRA, 403B, 457, any kind of retirement program, but there are pests that can actually steal the juices from the 401K.
What are some of the pests? The first one I can think of are federal and state taxes. When a person finally gets to retirement, all of the sudden there’s all of this juice that’s coming from the 401K. It’s bleeding out because of the taxes that become due at the time when money starts leaving a retirement program. So, that’s less money for you and I to be able to enjoy during our retirement years.
Here’s the question: could you graft on a whole life insurance policy in conjunction with a retirement plan that will provide all of the juice that you think should be coming to you? Whether that’s juice that will be turning in to wine, it’s kind of like a miracle. Turning juice in to wine simply by grafting on a whole life insurance policy.
How does this work out? This allows you to have flexibility. It allows you to have accessibility while you’re waiting from your age now until age 59 1/2. It can also provide a replacement for all of those taxes that could become due later in life. So, if you pass on your 401K, it essentially looks like it becomes tax-free to your beneficiaries. Right now, the government gets their share, but if I graft in the whole life insurance policy, the taxes would be paid by the policy, so the money inside of the 401K would be received in full.
But the concept that I like more than anything else is that most people, when they retire, have a 401K and let’s say it’s $1,000,000. They think they’re a millionaire, but if you get a 5% rate of return each and every year on your retirement plan, you’re not a millionaire, you’re a $50,000-a-year-aire because you’re not enjoying the principle. You’re only enjoying what’s being spun off from the interest, the 5% from the 401K.
If we grafted on a whole life insurance policy, could we instead be able to spend all of our interest, all of our principle, during our lifetime? We could potentially increase the amount of money we can spend while we are alive up to maybe 60% more money to enjoy while we’re alive because the grafting provides an opportunity for all of that money to be replaced once we depart, once we go on the ‘big trip’, once we take the ‘dirt nap’. The money could be replaced, income-tax free, and automatically deposited in to your family’s bank account.
Wouldn’t you like to be able to enjoy your money while you’re alive? Maybe be able to help your kids out with the down payment for a house. Maybe help your grandchildren with a college education. Instead of being stingy because somebody told you at some point in your life that once you have all of this money you can be self-insured. If you’re self-insured, you’re taking all of the risk. What’s happening is that does not allow you to spend your principle. It does not allow you to spend all of your money for fear that you will run out.
If you’ve got questions on how you can graft a whole life insurance policy issued by a mutual life insurance company in to your retirement plan that you have with work, or a retirement plan that you might have with a mutual fund company, etc. or if you want the maximum out of your life, and then be able to pass it all on income-tax free (you want both), contact our office for more information about me. To read my book or to listen, simply go to Amazon, to Barnes and Nobles, iTunes, or Audible and get my book, Investment’s Don’t Hug: Embracing the Life Insurance Asset. To find out more about my book, simply go to my website, www.investmentsdonthug.com. Let’s you and I talk about grafting a policy to make your life better.
