March Madness, Spring Sadness (657)

Passion 

With the grand roll out of this blog I thought I would delve a little deeper into the reasoning for its creation and its well intended purpose. About a year ago Katrice, my wife of 8 years and I were at our usually later than desired dinner at home with our little ones, Toot and Goobie (Yeah, all parents give their babies crazy nick names even if you always said you wouldn't and now you do, but won't admit it). And not to stray too far, but I just set myself up to make one thing very clear. THIS BLOG IS FOR THE REAL!!! As the Migos would say..."Dat Way!" to the fakes.

So...the conversation this night is centered around our passions and if we actually were aware of what they were. We were approaching our mid 30s with a 4 year old girl and a 1 year old boy to go along with busy careers. My wife was a 5 year employee at St. Jude Children's Hospital, and myself, an independent financial adviser. No doubt both of us LOVED our careers and where they were taking us, but myself in particular have always wanted more time to devote to what I consider my first love...Sports. More specifically, my love of Basketball, Football, and Baseball. Our daily life always seemed to run like a daily clock on steroids because each day ran into the next. Well on this night as we talked and pondered the future, a light switch was flipped on. What better way for me to tap into this love of sports while tying in my current passion of protecting families' futures?? So here you have it! Ladies and Gentleman A Numb3rs Gam3 is certainly for the casual sports fan. And it is undeniably for the one who loves tips on building and protecting wealth. But more than this, A Numb3rs Gam3 is for the one who first and foremost loves themselves enough to share good vibes with the world. My number of the day will always fuse together either a sports related story or something I deem pop culture positive with a financial tip. So there's that....lets get to it...

Six Hundred and Fifty Seven

Ben Margot/Associated Press

March Madness is upon us and leading into the final weekend in this years Men's basketball tourney, very few would have predicted this final four. Of course, there is no surprise that top seeds North Carolina and Gonzaga are among the four. On the other hand, the fact that 7 seeded South Carolina along with 3rd seed Oregon are the other two teams is quite surprising to say the least. According to ESPN's Bracket Challenge, only 0.01% of entrants correctly predicted this final four! Which leads us to our number of the day...657. Out of the 18,797,085 brackets submitted, 657 GUESSED (Yeah I'm a little salty) correctly. What was my final four you ask?? I placed my hopes with Florida St., Duke, Oregon, and Kentucky with the Kentucky beating Duke in the final. Needless to say, my bracket was busted...
I can deal with busted brackets, but what I can't deal with is a busted financial plan...

One of the points that I attempt to drive home with clients, as well as in the everyday interactions with people, is how easy it is to build generational wealth. I have always used life insurance as a tool to illustrate exactly that. Life insurance is one of the oldest, safest, most surefire tricks in the book that can guarantee your loved ones a lifetime of security when properly constructed. That and a will and testament, but we will get to that at a later time. Why life insurance?? Well let's start with the fact that the death benefit is left to your loved ones INCOME TAX FREE! There are very few instances where receiving a lump sum of money without paying tax on that money exists. Secondly, GoFund Me is not life insurance. If I had a dollar for every time I have seen one of these online fundraising sites being used to help raise money for someone's final expenses, I wouldn't have to work for my family's generational wealth. Maybe it is because now life insurance has evolved into something much more than our grandparents would have ever imagined. Now life insurance companies are also covering critical and chronic illnesses at no additional cost. So instead of your policy only paying out if you die, it will now pay you some of that death benefit if you have a stroke, heart attack or a variety of other illnesses. Lastly, its extremely affordable. Of course this last statement is contingent on several factors such as Age, health, height/weight, and criminal history. But consider that a fairly healthy 28 year old man can acquire $750,000 of life insurance coverage for $657/annually. That also breaks down to about $50 a month for those who might pay at that frequency.

Let's enjoy March Madness... Not Spring Sadness...

Stay tuned for more cool posts from me and enjoy your Final Four weekend!

As always, I will be available for any questions or concerns that you might have. I definitely appreciate the support and feedback ...

Oh....I've got the Zags cutting down the nets..

~Solo