This article will hit some people hard. They led us to believe that our 401Ks were the end-all-be-all for retirement.
If we just saved enough in our 401K, plus maybe a small pension and social security, we would be alright until the end of life.
Unfortunately, the world changes faster than we do as humans. Companies, corporations, governments, and families will no longer look out for us—we are on our own.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
The problem with 401Ks. 401Ks are a great way to save and invest. Add in an employer match system, and you can grow wealth. However, a 401K is static wealth, not functional wealth.
There are other ways to put this statement: “rich vs. wealthy” or “net worth vs. passive.” Put simply; a 401K is a large pile of unproductive money.
We live on income or, put another way, cash flow. When we go to work, we receive a paycheck. After we pay all of our utilities, debt, and bills, what remains is cash flow.
Write Book Reviews for Passive Income
If there is an emergency or a maintenance issue with our home, we can solve the problem with a pile of cash. However, we look forward to cash flow to replenish our reserves. We need cash flow.
The 401K does not give us cash flow or income. To generate cash flow, we need to sell shares of the 401K—this is where problems arise.
Selling shares of your 401K. For 30 to 40 years, we save into our 401K. We select a target-date fund (say 2040) and stockpile our money into this account.
When we turn 66, we have $600,000 in the account, but we need cash flow to survive. We have $2,000/month from a pension and $2,000/month from social security.
Passive Income for DeFi 101: Interest from Coins
To be comfortable, we would need $8,000/month of income. We have $4,000 from our pension and social security, leaving $4,0000/month from a 401K.
However, using the 4% rule, we can safely withdraw $2,000/month from our 401Ks. We can earn a higher yield from our 401K withdrawal if we can reinvest; however, this takes financial education we have not learned.
From simple to complex. The main problem with the 401K is that you input the money in the simplest way, but extracting the cash is complex.
We want our 401K to last a lifetime and perhaps have some to leave our children. However, we end up living in fear of running out of money. We trap ourselves between our working lives, retirement, and death.
The Happy Cash Flow Retirement System. There is a better way. The 401K is part of a system of income-producing assets we can leverage through our working lives and retirement.
Mortgage Positive: Make Cash Flow from Your Home
I call this system “Happy Cash Flow Retirement.” The system’s premise is that you take your dream retirement and work backward.
You ask one crucial question, “How much cash flow do I need every month to live my dream life?” If you can answer this question, you can build an HCFR that fits your needs.
Most people cannot answer the question because they cannot even dream. The labor force has beaten all of the imagination out of their spirit.
Start dreaming. But we need to start dreaming of our perfect retirement—and then put a number on it. Let’s say our dream number is $20,000/month in passive income throughout retirement.
Become a Bonafide Investor IV: The Value in Commodities
From this number, we can work backward to start creating the cash flow we need. Let’s look at some of the input we can use to arrive at our number.
- Social Security $2,000
- Pension $2,000
- 401K $2,000
- Roth IRA $1,000
- Dividends $10,000
- Rental Room $1,000
- Book Sales $2,000
Do you see how easy that was to create? Of course, building these income streams will take a while. It takes 10,000 hours to create an income stream, so be ready to sacrifice towards your goals.
Expanding past the 401K. The most challenging part of building a Happy Cash Flow Retirement is changing your mindset from fixed to growth.
They told us that working eight hours a day was all we needed to do to be successful. If we could save 5% and the employer matched it with 5%, that’s all we would need to survive.
The truth is we need to build our own way. We need assets that we can adjust with inflation. We need to control these assets to leverage them against recessions, inflation, and market downturns.
I Have Everything I Want in Life… And Then Some
Becoming an insider. With a 401K, we are 100% dependent on market forces. All of our money rides the stock market’s roller-coaster—we have little or no control.
We can become an insider with our income streams. As an insider, we control pricing, timing, and amounts. For example, I can increase the rent of my rental room.
I can add T-shirt sales to my website and charge $0.50 more for each book. I can price things to account for shifts in the economy.
Again, it will take a change in perspective to move away from the “employee 401K mindset” to a more free-flowing “entrepreneur-of-life-mindset.”
How Would You Invest $300,000?
Conclusion. 401Ks are vital to our longevity and wealth-building pursuits. However, they are just the tip of the iceberg.
When the market turns sour, withdrawing from our 401Ks does double the damage. We need to generate our wealth outside of the stock market.
The first step of creating a Happy Cash Flow Retirement is determining your dream lifestyle. Do you want to travel, help your children, or give to charity?
Over-Budgeting 2: Low Expenses, High Income
How much would it cost to be completely comfortable in this lifestyle? How do you want to spend your time? Who will join you in this rich life?
Once you can envision this rich life, it’s time to put things in motion. Start writing books, shooting videos, hosting podcasts, buying bonds, investing in dividends, or renting rooms.
It will take massive action to get the ball rolling. Once in motion, the power of compounding will get your income to where you want it. It’s tough to change your mindset, but it is 100% possible: I know because I did it. Good Luck!
- PDF of the Month: Retire Rich with a Business 4 (Free 149-Page PDF)
- Free PDF Downloads: Download FREE PDF LIST here
- Financial Mindset: Become CEO of Yourself 2 (Free 196-Page PDF)
- Retirement Planning: Your Retirement Planning Guide 2 (Free 255-Page PDF)
- Investing: How We Plan to Retire on Dividends 2 (165-Page Free PDF)
- Cryptocurrencies: Counting on Crypto 2 (Free 159-Page PDF)
- Real Estate: Financial Independence through Real Estate 2 (Free 123-Page PDF)
- Business: Retire Rich, Retire Comfortable with a Business 2 (Free 185-Page PDF)
- Latest DGWR: Don’t Gamble with Retirement 8 (Free 445-Page PDF)
- Everything!: The Biggest Book on Passive Income Ever 2! (book)(Web Edition)(Art Edition)
- I bought a Kindle Oasis: Check it out on Amazon
- Read My Books for Free: Free Kindle Books Schedule
- Crypto Exchange: My Favorite Crypto Exchange VOYAGER (Join Voyager)
- Kindle Unlimited: Why I Finally Subscribed Kindle Unlimited (learn more)
- Book Reviews: 505 Takeaways from 101 Books (pdf)
- Writing: The Publishing Chronicles (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)
- Best REIT- Fundrise: REITs vs. Homeownership (Join Fundrise)
- Follow us: On our Facebook Page and Join our Facebook Group
- Support the Channel on Cash App: $Kingmarine1981
- For more detailed analysis, join my Youtube: MFI YouTube Channel
Monthly Dividend Tracker Template: Buy on Etsy
Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. All Right Reserved Military Family Investing
Leave a Reply