Start Acting Annuity Rich (Wear a Suit!): Shootin' It Straight With Stan

Welcome to Shooting it Straight With Stan. I'm your host, Stan, The Annuity Man, America's annuity agent, undisputed, America's annuity agent, licensed in all 50 states. Today's topic is a really good one, and I want you to listen because I'm talking to most of you out there, and it's called Start Acting Annuity Rich. Now, all of you out there, "Well, Stan, I'm not rich. I'm not rich. I'm just telling you I'm not rich." I'm telling you, you are compared to the vast majority of Americans.

Let me give you some stats. I read an article the other day that said 60% or more of adults in America have less than $400 in their checking account. If you're reading this blog, I'm pretty sure that's not you. And if it is, God bless you. Go to work. You can do it. I believe in you. But for the majority of you out there, that's not you. You have IRAs, and you have non-qualified accounts, and you've planned, and you've saved, you've got 401(k)s, you're there.

Client Example

What I'm asking you to do is start acting rich. And I'm not talking about going and buying a Lamborghini or Bentley or walking around in a suit like Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island wearing an ascot. I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about being rational about what you have. I had a call this week with a great couple from the South. I won't tell you the state; I don't want to give them away. They're great people. They were looking to buy Multi-Year Guaranteed Annuities, Fixed-Rate annuities, and it's a guaranteed interest rate. It's the annuity industry version of a CD. And they had Social Security, both of them. They had worked in the state system, they had pensions, and they had enough money that they were never going to ever spend it all. And I said, "You guys will never spend it all. There's no way." But yet, they were still acting like they had no money.

Scars of Scarcity

My wife has deemed this the scars of scarcity, and I've discussed this before. We've all grown up with the scars of scarcity, with most of us not having everything we wanted. Many of us grew up poor and didn't know we were poor. But if you look back, we didn't have much money. And early in your life, many of us, including myself, didn't have any money. We started from zero. We have the scars of scarcity where I tell the story about my dad taking me to McDonald's and asking, I'm like, I don't know what I was, six or seven years old. And he, "Go ahead and order, son." And I said, "I want a large french fry." And he's like, "Large fry. We can't afford a large fry." I'm not sure I've ever ordered a large fry since. Seriously, it's called a scar. We all have those scars.

I'll tell you another story about mine, which brings me to tears sometimes. Early when we were married, my wife and I have been married 35 years, and I was young and struggling and trying to make it happen. When I came home, she was crying because we didn't have baby formula for our one-year-old, and we didn't have a lot of money. So we had a credit card, and I went to the store, and I bought so much baby formula on the credit card that a lot of the baby formula went bad because she couldn't eat it all. She outgrew it. But that scar is still with me. As a provider, you want to provide for your family, but there are a lot of you out there who have hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of you have millions of dollars in savings. And what I want you to do is I want you to act like you have it, act rich.

Rich people that we don't hang out with, me and you. We don't go to those parties. We didn't grow up rich. Rich people live off their money. Currently, at current interest rates, you can live off your money. I've done a couple of videos. One is ‘You've won the game. Why are you still playing?’ Or another one's called 'Live off the interest.' Many of you have enough money, and you could just live off the interest. Yet we've been indoctrinated that we have to put our money at risk, and we have to have money in the markets, and we have to take those risks. I'm not sure we have to do that. You don't have to do anything.

Inflation

The other one that drives me crazy, and this is part of it, is that you need to act annuity rich. You need to act rich when people with millions of dollars start talking to me about inflation. Really? Are you kidding me? Please stop that. That's arrogant. And you're not doing the math. Run the number. You're never going to spend the money that you have in most cases. Inflation hits the low end of this country, that 60% that's driving around with $400 in their checking account, the next time you're on the interstate, and you see ten cars, 6 of them have $400 in their checking account. That's who inflation hits, not me and you.

I tell the story all the time about my wife when inflation started clicking up here recently, and she calls me from the store and says, "Have you seen the price of eggs? Do we want to pay that for eggs?" And my comment to her was, "We can buy the store. We get to own the grocery store, buy the eggs. We're good." Same thing with gas. She calls me, "Seen gas?" "Buy the gas. We're good."

I'm You

Same with you. And I know this is out of your lane, but I'm you. I grew up in rural America, rural North Carolina. I'm you. I've accumulated. I've worked hard, scrimped, saved, and tried to work through all of those scars of scarcity and issues of no money back in the day that still leaves those scars. I'm trying to live through that to live a better life. I'm not saying to be frivolous. I'm still going to wear baseball caps and Adidas sweatsuits with my logo on them. I don't care how much money I have. I'm still going to drive nondescript cars because I'm not a car person. I'm still going to live in the same house because that's who I am. But I'm not going to have money control me. I'm not going to have money live in the back of my head, and I'm talking to you, listen to me. I'm talking to you.

As I tell my mom, "Go buy the drink. You don't have to do table lemonade, get water, and then put Sweet'N Low and a lemon in it." You can afford the drink even if they're overcharging. You can afford to go out. You can afford it. And with annuities, you can set things up so that there's a lifetime income stream that you can never outlive. You can set the things up so there's principal protection. You just live off the interest and never touch the principal. You can set things up contractually, so you don't have to worry. Or if you leave money in the markets, you don't really care about it. You're a better trader or a better investor because you already have that income floor in place. You already have a vast majority of what you have principally protected with CDs and treasuries and money markets and things like that.

Act Rich

But I need you to act rich. I need you; if you have a million dollars of net worth, I need you to see an estate tax lawyer, a tax planning lawyer. I need you to act rich. I need you to spend the money to do that. I need you to spend the money to see a CPA and ensure all the Is are dotted, and Ts are crossed. I need you to think through what you have and how it will be dispersed if something happens to you cognitively or you die unexpectedly. I need you to make sure that all of that you've earned and worked so hard for is not going to go through probate. I need you to act rich. Put on the hat and act rich.

A good example of that is Stan, The Annuity Man, myself. I'm a reckless musician and writer. If you gave me the choice of just being by myself for the rest of my life, that's me. I love that. But the Stan The Annuity Man, this guy, this character, I flip that switch on to help the consumers and be positive about these annuity contracts and the strategies you can put in place to improve your life.

Now, I drink the Kool-Aid. I've been on Wall Street. I've seen that. It's not for me. The reason I'm Stan The Annuity Man and I left that is because I never wanted to lose any money ever again. I wanted to sell contractual guarantees, and I love it and am passionate about it. And that's what I do with my money as well. I go by the old Warren Buffett thing, and by the way, who's rich? Warren. And what does Warren say? He says, "There are two rules in life. Rule number one: Never lose money. Rule number two: Never forget rule number one." That doesn't mean that you don't have money in the markets. If you want the money in the market, stay there. But a lot of you don't have to do that. A lot of you can live off the interest and act rich. You can.

And I enjoy when I talk to clients that schedule calls, and they actually get me, and they'll tell us, "Well, give me the 30,000-foot view of what you have," and they'll give it to me. And I'm like, "You need to act a little rich. You need to act richer. You're the evil rich that the politicians talk about." That's not saying you're arrogant. You've worked hard, you've scrimped, you've saved, you've done without, nod your head. You have. We all have. But in chapter two of your life, I need you to put the people in place: the tax lawyers, the CPAs, the estate tax lawyers. I need you to have conversations with your family and spouse about who will get the money. I need you to start acting rich. Put that team of advisors around you because you are rich, whether you think you are or not.

And people always say, "Well, I guess it's a lot of money." It's a lot of money that you have. It's a lot. 98%, I'm sure, or more Americans would trade places with you reading this because if you're reading this blog, you're trying to figure out how to do it better and get better. Is there something better? Should I consider an annuity? Should I consider annuity strategies? I mean, people would love to be where you're at. Yes, you've earned it. You've gotten there because of hard work, diligence, and IQ, but act rich. I always tell my wife, "Buy what you want. We're at the point now: buy what you want." I know that she's not going to do anything crazy. She grew up in Nebraska in a trailer, and her parents were great people and hard workers, just like my parents. I tell her, "You grew up in a trailer. I grew up in a brick trailer." It's just the same size. It just had brick around it, and that's okay.

One of the reasons I'm in the financial business is that I have always tried to figure out how rich people get their money. How do they do that? You know what they do? They put a good team around them, act rich, live off interest, and put guarantees in place. That's what they do, and that's what you need to do. So start acting a little bit more rich, annuity rich, as I say, meaning put guarantees in place so you can live your life and not worry about it. My name is Stan The Annuity Man. See you next time.

Never forget to live in reality, not the dream, with annuities and contractual guarantees! You can use our calculators, get all six of my books for free, and most importantly book a call with me so we can discuss what works best for your specific situation.