A grocery store is a complicated place to shop if you want to truly be healthy and live a long life. More Americans are seeking to preserve their QUALITY of life through better eating and are now coming to understand that their choices in the grocery store must change. The world of personal finance, wealth building, and retirement planning has the same challenges as shopping in the grocery store. There are lots of good-looking investment and savings options but very few that are actually good for you. Few will give you the desired outcome which is a long happy life with enough passive income to enjoy your retirement and leave wealth to your heirs.
Below are a few simple rules that will help you be a better consumer of both food and financial products.
Rule 1 for Food
90% of your groceries should be real food from the produce aisle. The more raw food and living food you eat the more real nutrients you will absorb and the better your health will be. 90% of what is in a grocery store is not Food. It is a chemical compound that is packaged in an attractive wrapper but it is not food. Oreos, Twinkies, frosted flakes, spaghetti sauce etc, is not food. Apples ,Oranges, Carrots, Kale, and Bananas are food. If it comes in a package it’s probably not food.
Rule 1 for Finance
90% of all investment produces are prepackaged nightmares that come with too much risk. Avoid as much as possible IRA, 401k, 403b, Thrift savings plans, and mutual funds. These plans are mostly prepackaged garbage with very high hidden fees and lots of market risk. These products can only perform in a raising market but get hit hard every time the market falls. These products are the junk food of the finance world and American baby boomers over consumption of these products produced the greatest bull market in history that took the market to 10000 and beyond. Wipe away all the sales and marketing nonsense and realize that the stock market took off from 1982 to 1999 because baby boomers put all their money in their companies 401k,403b, and thrift savings plans and bought mutual funds. Did I mention that this group has 70% of all of the savings in the country? Over the next decade they will walk away from these products and kill the market for the rest of your lifetime. Avoid these plans and stick to safe products with guaranteed income and favorable tax treatment. You should be investing to create a pension or even multiple pensions. A focus on income and tax reduction is really all you need to understand about planning for retirement. Focus on INCOME! 
Rule 2 For Food
Rarely do grocery stores market things that are good for you because they are not sexy. The sexy stuff comes in a fancy package and has a marketing slogan. There is a marketing campaign for every cookie, every toxic chemical in the cleaning aisle, every low sodium TV dinner. If it has a commercial or a mascot and people are buying it avoid it like the plague. When is the last time you saw a commercial for a grape or Kale. You body struggles to break down the things you see commercials for but it absorbs the nutrients out of the real food items.
Rule 2 For Finance
If it has a commercial in finance it probably has little to no financial use and too much risk. People are buying their insurance from lizards and Geckos, and dancing bears. They are being sold on the lowest monthly cost without considering what type of coverage they get for that money. That improper coverage leaves them exposed to many risk. They are walking around carrying big Orange Numbers asking “what’s you number.” The question has never been at what age you retire but at what Income. That big orange number doesn’t tell you how much money you can spend a month and what your tax burden will be.
The best financial products are not marketed on TV. The wealthy use another group products that are they are safe and unsexy. The wealthy look for income and products with low or no tax. In addition, they look for companies that have a track record of paying for 100 years or more. It’s hard to make that sexy, but that’s why the wealthy are wealthy.
Rule 3 For Food
Drink lots of Water but not bottled Water
About a decade ago the country finally got to the point that it agreed that water is very good for the body. This was a good thing. From that discovery the industry of bottled water took off. People stopped trusting water out of the tap and started carrying water everywhere they went. Grocery stores began to stack bottled water as high as they could and a trend began that shows no sign of slowing down, ever. In fact ,the worst public water gets the more bottled water will be sold. There is just one problem with this and that is that the bottle that holds the water is poisoning the water and that poison can cause cancer. In addition , fresh water loses its’ real value after three days so all the water in a grocery store is dead water, not fresh spring water like the package claims. Great idea but poor execution.
The proper water filters and a system that gives you alkaline water in PBA Free bottles is a simple solution. This truth represents a loss in sales of billions to the bottled water industry and the grocery store so don’t expect to see this anytime soon.
Rule 3 for Finance
Save as much money as you can for retirement but not in retirement plans
Americans have one of the lowest savings rates in the world. That may be because people have seen their savings wiped out over and over again since they started investing in the stock market in the 80s. The S & L crisis, the crash of 1987, the tech bubble 0f 1999, the real estate bubble of 2008, at least once a decade people are getting hit hard and that makes them not want to save. When America was a pension society they saved a lot more. It’s not that saving is wrong but like bottled water it’s the package you wrap your savings in. Why put your savings in the stock market? Why tie your life insurance policy to the stock market? Why play hunches and trends?
We can save in solid tax advantaged , non market exposed products that state the return before we invest. We can use produces that have no exposure to the up and down of the market. We always move forward no matter what is happening on Wall Street. Three simple questions to ask are, Can I lose Money, What is the guaranteed return, and What is the tax consequence. The answer should be favorable for all three before you invest.
Grocery stores and investment firms are big shining beautiful places with options and products laid out all over the place. Knowing which to choose is a matter of a proper education that develops into a sound philosophy. If you haven’t invested in that education then you simply put yourself at risk every time you enter either of these institutions. If you need a place to start try reading a simple text written by author Tony Brayboy called The Big Payback, it’s a short instructional book that’s worth a million dollars .
Here is the link: http://readthebigpayback.com/3-matrix/
Wishing you Wealth, Wellness, and Wisdom
Mark Fuller
Manager of Wealth
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