Print
PDF

Video Wealth Health Tip 05 - Insurance

Written by John D. Buerger, CFP®.

Share/Save/Bookmark

 

John Buerger, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional and Wealth Coach from ALTUS Wealth Solutions in San Luis Obispo, CA presents the most important Wealth Health Tip - "Consume less than your produce (spend less than you make). That's It.
That's a Big "Duh."  Everybody knows this, right (or at least they should)? A theme of these videos is to state the obvious, but re-framed in ways you can actually use to your advantage.
A sea-change in your behavior is needed ... but that won't happen by me telling you what to do (a mistake most advisors make). You already know what to do. My job is to help you find a way to actually do it.
Let's look at this personal finance tip -- Spend Less than U make. We all KNOW this is true and yet very few people do it. Why? It's really quite natural -- you're hardwired that way. Spending money FEELS GOOD. Saving money is PAINFUL
Your brain is faced with a choice - "Spend money now" (party time, fun) or "Save for the future" (yuch). Your brain picks party time, immediate gratification almost every time.
But what if saving money wasn't painful?
We're not talking budget here. Budget is a 6-letter 4-letter word. What if you could actually spend MORE on the things that are important to you and pay for it by spending less on the stuff that doesn't matter?
You CAN -- and it starts with being aware of EVERY DOLLAR you are spending. For the next week, with every purchase you make, ask "is this important to me?" Also remember that a dollar spent in one place can't be spent someplace else (which might be really important).
Give it a shot and see how this does for you.
I'm John Buerger reminding you ...
Get Control Over Your Money BEFORE it Takes Control of Your Life.

This is John Buerger, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and Wealth Coach with another Video Wealth Health Tip.

We try to keep these both fun and simple ... because complicated is overwhelming and makes it so people don't want to watch. Sticking to the big picture really helps here and our last Video Wealth Health Tip was the ultimate in "big picture."

We talked about the money game and the three basic elements: offense, defense and celebration.

This time we're going to focus on the defense: protection, keeping more of what you've already got ... basically insurance. You'll find that as you grow older, insurance becomes more important mostly because there is more to protect.

Now insurance is (technically speaking) pooling small amounts of money from millions of people in order to build a reserve and protect against rare but catastrophic losses by a few. Insurance is a concept that was originated back in the 17th and 18th centuries in the days of the sea merchants and their nemisis the sea pirates.

One of the natural rules of insurance is that trying to protect yourself from small, everyday losses is much more expensive than trying to protect yourself from much larger but much more rare occurences. The reason for this is that the insurance companies are taking on the risk and the more risk they take on, the more they want to be paid.

A perfect example of this is healthcare. In this country we really don't have Health Care Insurance. Instead we have Health Care Pre-payment Plans. You're going to go see the doctor anyway and all those doctor visits and everything else will likely add up to hundreds if not thousands of dollars every year.

But what you're doing is paying thousands of dollars to the insurance company each year in order for them to pay those bills for you - This is health care pre-payment, not particularly efficient and grossly ineffective and one major reason why health care costs have skyrocketed.

Your Video Wealth Health Tip has two parts this time. The first one is "Protect What You Already Have." Remember that the best offense is always a good defense.

The second part is: "Insure only against the big losses that happen rarely and keep around cash reserves around to cover the small, everyday losses that you're going to be paying anyway. This will save you thousands of dollars each and every year.

Remember, "Get Control Over Your Money BEFORE It Takes Control of Your Life!" This is John Buerger with ALTUS Wealth Solutions. Thanks for watching.

Print
PDF

Video Wealth Health Tip 04 - The Money Game

Written by John D. Buerger, CFP®.

Share/Save/Bookmark

 

John Buerger, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER professional and Wealth Coach from ALTUS Wealth Solutions in San Luis Obispo, CA presents the most important Wealth Health Tip - "Consume less than your produce (spend less than you make). That's It.
That's a Big "Duh."  Everybody knows this, right (or at least they should)? A theme of these videos is to state the obvious, but re-framed in ways you can actually use to your advantage.
A sea-change in your behavior is needed ... but that won't happen by me telling you what to do (a mistake most advisors make). You already know what to do. My job is to help you find a way to actually do it.
Let's look at this personal finance tip -- Spend Less than U make. We all KNOW this is true and yet very few people do it. Why? It's really quite natural -- you're hardwired that way. Spending money FEELS GOOD. Saving money is PAINFUL
Your brain is faced with a choice - "Spend money now" (party time, fun) or "Save for the future" (yuch). Your brain picks party time, immediate gratification almost every time.
But what if saving money wasn't painful?
We're not talking budget here. Budget is a 6-letter 4-letter word. What if you could actually spend MORE on the things that are important to you and pay for it by spending less on the stuff that doesn't matter?
You CAN -- and it starts with being aware of EVERY DOLLAR you are spending. For the next week, with every purchase you make, ask "is this important to me?" Also remember that a dollar spent in one place can't be spent someplace else (which might be really important).
Give it a shot and see how this does for you.
I'm John Buerger reminding you ...
Get Control Over Your Money BEFORE it Takes Control of Your Life.

Welcome to another Video Wealth Health Tip. My name is John Buerger, I'm a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER and Wealth Coach.

The purpose of these video wealth health tips and the reason why I spend hours writing them, standing in front of this camera, editing and producing them is ... I want you to HAVE more, KEEP more and ENJOY more in life each and every day.

I've also found that I need to keep things pretty simle. Whether it is with client or in the videos, if I make it too complicated (and the world of personal finance has a lot of moving parts) you're going to become overwhelmed and then you'll disengage and ... well, that doesn't do you any good.

Today's Video Wealth Health Tip is a very simple concept. It's a 30-thousand-foot view of what I call "The Money Game."

Think of your personal finance efforts as part of a giant game of money - and it's a game you cannot opt out of. You're in it. You're playing it right now because you're making financial choices each and every day. And there are millions of other participants - friends, family, neighbors and the government.

Now the Money Game (like all games) has three basic elements. The first one is offense. In the Money Game, the offense is Growth, savings and investment choices.

Then there's the defense, protecting what you already have. In the Money Game that often involves insurance which is, by the way, the topic for next week's Video Wealth Health Tip. I promise to keep it as simple as possible (even thought it can be a really complicated subject) AND to present it in such a way that you've never seen before. I hope you can join us for that next week.

The third part of any game worth playing is celebration. When you score a goal, you celebrate. When you hit a good shot, you celebrate. When your defense makes a great stop, you celebrate. The same thing goes in the Money Game and in the Money Game, Celebration is Distirbution - it is using the money for something that is worth celebrating.

Now understand that in life there is more distribution later in life - when there are more resources to distribute - than there is early in life. Early in life we have more growth (offense) because we have more capicity for that than we do later in life (especially after we've retired).

There is balance going on here. All through life there is offense, defense and celebration and the key is to not have too much of any one thing and not enough of something else. When you have a lack of balance, that's when things start to go wrong.

For today, just think of yourself as in this Money Game. You are an active participant (you cannot opt out) and you're making choices each and every day ... so you probably ought to be trying to make the best ones possible for you.

We'll have more next time. Remember, Get Control Over Your Money BEFORE it Takes Control of Your Life. This is John Buerger with ALTUS Wealth Solutions. Thanks for joining us.

 

 

More Articles...