As you might know, the Canterbury “tools of trade” enable [for example] clients to pay off a typical 20 year home loan in say 3 years, then build an impressive portfolio of assorted growth assets that increase in value over time and provide ever increasing passive incomes – and all of this happens without increasing their present monthly home loan payment. In other words, our clients become well-off and even blatantly rich, something that would not have happened otherwise without our intervention.
Strangely there is a percentage of people who find all of this a bit “ho-hum” and boring. Such people might say “I’m ok as I am” or “I don’t want to be rich”. However there is an element to all of this that is in no way ho-hum or boring – and here it is.
Everyone has had a taste of what it’s like to lose their independence and be confined to home e.g. some people have been on crutches or incapacitated in other ways. The Covid-19 lockdowns have made sure everyone has had a taste of this – not to be able to see the doctor, not being able to even buy groceries without specific planning, not being able to go to the park or the beach. The normal things in life start to feel distant and drift away. You feel left out.
That is a sneak-peak at what getting old is like – a way of life with limited independence that marches inevitably to complete vulnerability.
Think of the street that you now live in. Imagine that the lack independence was not something that affected everyone like Covid-19, imagine it was something that only affected you – your very own mental or physical frailty that restricted your independence. Everyone else in the street remains the same, free and independent, but you alone become dependent and vulnerable. They live on happily, but you don’t. The life you had has slipped away – and each day it slips further away. That’s what getting old is like.
We all know what happens to old people. They become defenceless. This is real.
People look forward to their retirement years, but it is beyond debate that anyone reaching the age 65 will spend a significant number of their remaining years frail, disabled and dependant. More than ever before, it becomes imperative to have help from others – and if you do not have strong finances at that stage, the last decades of your life can be hell on earth. We all know about the horror stories of what happens in some nursing homes – people not being fed, being left in their own mess for days, help buzzers being taken out of reach, physical assaults from overworked staff – the list goes on. That’s what happens to poor people. Rich people have safety nets that prevent such mis-treatment.
Everyone will lose their independence. Poor people need to accept the loss of their dignity, hope for the best and live the horror. Rich people can buy the support and the retain the dignity.
Once again the loss of independence is real and it is coming your way….sometime. Now is the time to plan and work around it, not the day before it finally shows it’s blatant face. Some people live decades being mistreated in a compromised existence in a helpless, worn out body – and endure the day after day stress of knowing it could have been done another way…..”if only”.
Everyone needs to see and plan ahead so that the shift to the future stages of their life is not done with a blindfold and crossed fingers.
We know this is a grim story, but it need not be grim in your case. To plan ahead will enable you to retain a good measure of independence and quality of life. When frailty eventually creeps up on you and if you have not planned ahead, you will be herded down an unknown road based on the bias, goals and ulterior motives of the first person who says “I can help you”.
So when Canterbury says to you now, we can pay off a 20 year home loan in 3 years and then build significant investment wealth and passive incomes in a way not possible otherwise, that is something to grab with both hands, whether you want to be rich or not.
This minute or this second could be the turning point for you – where you either chose to step strongly towards safety in your “golden years” or remain on course for compromise and vulnerability.
If you have real money in old age, you can protect yourself. If you don’t have real money you cannot. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now”. Canterbury have the seeds ready and waiting.