Best Investment Ideas If You Have $100,000
I remember the first time I had $100,000 saved up. It almost seemed surreal and I honestly couldn’t believe I’d achieved it.
If you’re reading this, you may have achieved the same milestone or simply aspire to. Either way, I want to talk about what I did with my $100k and how it’s worked out for me.
First, I earned mine through business profits; selling, marketing and delivering products and services through my business.
It may seem like it doesn’t matter how you got the $100,000 as we consider what we should do with it, but it actually matters a lot.
I’ll explain.
If I earned the $100,000 through a source that requires my time (working, selling, being an entrepreneur, etc.) then I need to invest in a way that does not compete for my time.
My rule?
Never trade time for the same money more than once.
So I don’t invest in things that are going to require my active participation because my goal with investing is first to achieve Financial Independence where I have Passive Income that exceeds my savings, expenses and taxes and no longer have the obligation of trading my time for money. And if an investment requires me to trade time for it (when I already traded time to get the money to invest in the first place) then it does not achieve that aim and actually is taking me further away from my goal of Financial Independence.
Make sense?
So I am a Passive Investor, meaning I don’t invest in things that require my time or direct involvement.
Additionally, if something does require my time (which I have a finite amount of) it is directly competing against the thing I did to earn and save the money I am investing in the first place, making it harder for me to come up with more money to invest. I only have so much time and even if I earn 12% per year on my $100k (which I often do) that is only $12,000 and it would take me 8 years and 3 months before I have another $100,000 from that to reinvest again. That’s too long to wait and so I need to keep earning and saving in order to speed things up and any investment that reduces or interferes with my ability to earn and save actually slows me down.
Those are my thoughts, but let’s talk now about what I did, why and how it worked out.
First, I had debt. It wasn’t a ton, but I did have some credit cards and a car loan.
I looked at the prospect of investing $100,000 and knew if I earned 12%, I would be making $1000/mo in passive income from the investment I was looking at. But my car payment was $1000/mo and my credit cards were about that too. The interest rate on my car was 6% and on my credit cards they were 15–19%. I could invest the $100,000 and maybe earn 12% and $1,000/mo (no investment is guaranteed) or I could pay off my consumer debt and earn 6–19% and over $2,000/mo (guaranteed) and still have funds left over.
All of the gurus said “never pay off debt”, “invest in real estate” and “never save money”. But I looked at the fact that $70,000 invested into paying off my consumer debt earned me a guaranteed 6–19% interest and over $2,000/mo yield and the math didn’t lie.
But I didn’t want to pay off the debt and never have the money again.
What did I do?
I setup and funded a Sacred Account first.
What is a Sacred Account?
It is High-Early-Cash-Value Dividend Paying Whole Life Insurance Policy.
You can learn all about it here.
In short, I could put my $100,000 into it and have the following benefits immediately:
- Protection against estate taxes and probate if I die
- Protection against loss (and guaranteed growth too!)
- Protection against taxation
- Protection against lawsuits
- Protection against creditors
- Protection against privacy invasion (it’s a unilateral contract so legally nobody can access or change it but me)
- Protection against opportunity cost (I can earn “arbitrage” with it, growing the same dollar in 2 different locations at the same time)
It is quite literally the safest place to put money. In fact, the largest banks in the country have nearly $200 billion in this kind of life insurance. They call it BOLI (Bank Owned Life Insurance) and because of this, banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan…they’re the #1 owners and purchasers of Whole Life Insurance in the country. I wanted to become my own bank, so I put the money here first.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how it works:
If I put in $1, that dollar grows at a 3–5% annual rate, tax free for the rest of my life and has all of the protections I mentioned above.
I can borrow against that dollar, 70–90% of it, and pay a cost of interest to borrow of 1–3%.
I now have 70–90% of my deposited dollar, but the original dollar is still going to earn 3–5% while I use the 70–90%. This is called arbitrage where I can grow the same dollar in 2 different locations at the same time.
I will take the 70–90% I’ve borrowed from my Sacred Account and use it to pay off debt, make large purchases or invest and then I will pay myself back. If I paid off debt, whatever I used to pay toward my debt I will now pay myself back with. If I bought a car, a boat or a jet I will use charge myself principal and interest and pay myself back as well. If I used the funds to invest, I will take the income from the investment and pay myself back with it.
Long story short, I am double dipping with my money by earning 3–5% with the life insurance and also earning with whatever strategy I use my loaned funds for.
In this case I had debt. So I deposited the $100,000, took a loan and paid off my debt. I then took the old payments I had freed up and began to repay myself with them.
Next, I set aside 6 months for reserves in my life insurance. I had some funds left over from my $100k and then as I repaid myself, I built up my reserves. I also started depositing income into the Sacred Account from my monthly income to build up to 6 months as well.
Why this?
Because the wealthy have reserves. They have a pool of money they want to protect and never lose so that if an emergency or opportunity comes up, they are solvent and can handle it. 6 months of expenses puts me in a position where my business can stay afloat and I can pay my staff for 6 months with no income if I needed to (unlikely to happen, but we did have lockdowns and shutdowns less than 2 years ago so it kind of did happen).
This also puts me in a position where I can invest unrestricted. Nothing is worse than investing and at the same time being scared that you’ll need the money back to handle an emergency at some point. So I just leave 6 months in my Sacred Account for this purpose.
Once I achieved that 6 month reserve target, I self financed my own vehicle.
In fact, I also just recently did this with my latest Audi E-Tron.
Here you would borrow the funds from your Sacred Account (without dipping into your 6 month reserve number) and used the funds to buy the car. You will then take whatever “car payment” you would have made to a bank and instead pay it to yourself. Certain cars also have business related tax deductions so I suggest looking into that if you can as well. The result? I’m paying myself $1200/mo instead of the bank. I am earning 3–5% still on the money I borrowed to buy the car. I also own the car outright, I get tax deductions and in today’s environment (and probably for the next few years) the price of the car will probably appreciate as long as it wasn’t a new vehicle. By doing this, I earn about a 10–12% annual rate of return over 5 years on buying a car! Instead of financing it with a bank and losing income and interest. Or paying cash for it and losing the ability to invest that cash and grow it in the future.
Today, I still do things like self-finance vehicles and large purchases, but I also now borrow against my Sacred Account to invest in Real Estate and earn passive income. You see, I’m a private lender. I will borrow a minimum of around $50,000 from my Sacred Account and lend it out for a real estate investment where I am the underlying mortgage. I earn 12% by doing this, plus I still earn 3–5% on the money I borrowed. I’ve been doing this for years and the result is that I have accumulated a nice portfolio of mortgage loans that pay me every month with income that is as passive as it gets. I pay myself back with the income and as soon as I have built up enough, I take out another loan and do it again.
You see, the problem most people have is they think they can only do 1 thing with $100k. Like buy real estate or pay off debt or buy a house.
With this strategy, I’ve been able to do many things with the same $100k I started with because when I deposited it into my Sacred Account, I ensured that I’d have that same exact $100k growing for me to borrow against and repay for the rest of my life.
If you’re reading this, you’re looking to do “the right thing” with your $100,000.
But I want to tell you that it’s not just about doing the right thing.
It’s also about:
- Doing the right thing, the right way
- At the right time
- In the right sequence
If you’d like to learn more about how to do this, I want to invite you to attend my free weekly course on Finances. I call it #FinanceFriday.
Here is a free replay of the one I taught last week!
And if you want to attend this week for free, I want to personally invite you!
It’s this Friday at 10:00 pm EST and I am going to discuss the exact topic I mentioned in this article: How To Invest $100,000
Click here to register!
To Purpose, Wealth & Freedom,
Jerry Fetta
Jerry Fetta is the CEO and Founder of Wealth DynamX. He is a nationally recognized financial expert featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Fox, Chicago Weekly News, New York Finance, interviewed on over 45 podcasts with world renowned experts, earning endorsements and affiliations throughout his career with names like Kevin O’Leary, Grant Cardone, Dave Ramsey, and Pamela Yellen.
Jerry’s mission in life is to help create millions of financially educated and solvent families achieving greater financial freedom and sharing the truth about money with those around them.
Learn more at www.WealthDynamX.com
(DISCLAIMER: The information in this content should not be considered tax, financial, investment, or any kind of professional advice. Only a professional diagnosis of your specific situation can determine which strategies are appropriate for your needs. Wealth DynamX can and does not provide advice unless/until engaged by you.)
