My trip to Disneyland

My trip to Disneyland. 

For many people Disneyland is the most magical place on earth. I loved my trip to Disneyland as a kid, but It wasn’t magical for me until I took my wife and our 2 young children for their 2012 Christmas present using my life insurance policy. That’s right my life insurance policy. Many people think life insurance is only for when you die, but I will show you that it is a great place to safely grow your money and design an incredible life for yourself and family.

It had been about 15 years since I last went to Disneyland. It was so long ago California Adventure didn’t even exist yet. I remember loving my time there, running from ride to ride and closing the park each night. It was like no place I had ever been before. I wanted my own family to experience it and so I started to save money towards the trip.
On the Sunday after Thanksgiving a friend of mine posted on Facebook that her Sister-in-law had passed away unexpectedly, leaving the husband to raise 5 children under the age of 12. My heart went out to them and I felt a sick feeling come over me. As someone that does retirement planning and sells life insurance my first thought was I hope the wife had life insurance to help the widowed husband take care of the kids. My next thought was I hope they made enough memories together to last a lifetime.
This got me thinking about my own family. We had not been on a real family vacation and we didn’t have enough BIG memories if something were to happen to me, my wife or heaven forbid one of our children. So on Sunday December 2nd, 2012 I did something spontaneous and out of character. I went online and booked a week long vacation along with 4 days at Disneyland. I wanted to make some memories.

So how does someone without a lot of money go on a nice Disneyland trip? Here is how I did it. Many years ago I started saving money inside of a specially designed life insurance plan that couldn’t lose money and would earn interest. I had been saving to be able to finance my own cars down the road so I wouldn’t lose money on interest and depreciation. I had saved enough money to pay off my car and become the bank, but instead I decided to go live and make memories.
You see with these specially designed life insurance policies they have more living benefits than they do death benefit. You can borrow the money you have in there to do whatever you want, it continues to earn interest as if it were never gone and you can use it later in life to help supplement your retirement. Best of all if something happens to me the loan is repaid and my family gets the death benefit money tax-free to help replace my income.
So here is how it worked out: Disneyland Tickets and Hotel were $1,400, Gas to drive down $300, Hotel in Las Vegas there and back was $100, Food and extra’s at Disneyland was $300. The total was $2100 for the entire trip.

The credit card I would have carried the balance on has an interest rate of 14% APR. I hate credit cards and I hate debt, so instead I borrowed the money out of my life insurance plan and will pay myself back at 14% interest over 1 year. At 14% interest the total paid back in is $2,394. That means I will actually recoup the entire cost of the trip in one year and have $294 extra back in my plan. I will repay my plan $200 a month for a year. Meanwhile my plan earned interest as if the money I borrowed out were never gone. Plus we got the reward points for buying the tickets online with my wife GAP Visa card and actually got a $30 gift card for making such a large purchase and paying it off in less than 30 days. Bonus!

Remember the clever Mastercard ads? 2 mini vacations in Las Vegas $100, your kids first time seeing the ocean $40, 4 days in Disneyland $1400, a Magical memory filled vacation with your family-PRICELESS! I can’t even begin to write how much fun we had. To see my sons face as he met Rapunzel (his first crush), to see my daughter ride the Winnie the Pooh ride, to kiss my wife with my children holding on to my legs under the firework show was truly the highlight of my life. My son is now obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean, my daughter finally understands her Cinderella Castle and dolls and my wife and I talk about our magical vacation all the time. This trip was filled with memories and inspired ideas for our families future.

Ironically around 1950 Walt Disney had dreams of opening a family amusement park where families could come together in a clean park and make memories. Unfortunately his idea was rejected by dozens of banks. He eventually borrowed money from his life insurance plan to get the financing started. In 1955 Disneyland opened it doors for the making of lifetime memories for million of families.

There are so many things you can do with the specialized life insurance plans I build for clients. Only your imagination will hold you back. In a future post I will tell you how I used my life insurance plan to start a house cleaning company that cleaned over 500 homes and did almost $50,000 in revenue its first year. With my memories made and my repayment plan in place, who knows I may be going back to Disneyland next year. I know I will have the money to do it thanks to my life insurance plan.
To learn more about these plans, how they work and how they can be used during your lifetime, contact me to set up a time to speak.

Cheers,

Stephen Gardner
888-638-0080
Safe Money Specialist
http://about.me/StephenEGardner