Every retirement plan needs to be based on a solid rock, a foundation that supports it.
Unfortunately, too many people rely on the shifting sands of the stock market, and like any house built on sand, it can blow away when the winds become too strong. I know what that’s like.
I played the market once. It was 2002, and my investment immediately lost money—half of what I put in. Granted, I was in a very high-risk category, but I didn’t learn. My broker, as is common, loaned me the amount I lost, reinvested it, and that almost immediately went “poof.” I had enough. I pulled out the remaining balance. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
While I was teaching in the School District of Philadelphia (a twenty-two year career), I started buying and managing real-estate investment properties. I learned the value of having liquid, available cash—something you don’t always have with real estate and other investments.
This led me to the financial services industry. What particularly interested me in insurance was that it could be used to build assets and afforded the policy holder liquid cash—money they could use when they needed it, not when the banks or the government said it was okay for them to have it.