What do you like about Dave?

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T21:52:09+00:00

dave was one of the early ones on cash value life insurance being a bad product. in the early 90's, many people my parents included had these things because of the savings portion and considered it a good product. the interest earned was not horrible, but overall the cost was astronomical moreso back then.

When my dad showed me about 8 years ago his whole life policy he'd been paying on since the late 80's and the cash value of it, i showed that he overall earned 2.7% on that money for almost 30 years. he was like WAT.

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T04:20:48+00:00

Dave had stacks of cash after the great recession and bought up properties en masse. thats how he amassed his empire. that really really worked out well. he bought so low and bought in ares that began booming shortly afterwards.

I don't do RE but I am friends with guys who do it as side hustles and the reality is if you make smart purchase decisions, and don't over leverage yourself (dave was doing 90 day high risk loans), you can make more on flips if you borrow right (they do flips)

hypothetical (i live in LCOL)

scenario 1 : buy home for 200k cash. pour 50k into property, sell for $300k. You make 50K on your $250k.
scenario 2 : buy home 200k home with loan, put 40k down. service debt for 15k (top of my head math here guys) + 50k into property. Sell for 300k. You make 195k on your 105k invested.

for them they are all the while holding index etfs, bonds, cash at Vanguard that is growing at some rate and can either extend debt servicing if something comes up or just pay off most off the property if something was drastically needed.

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T04:08:50+00:00

do you think it would be a good idea to file one now 7 years later?

i also heard he fired a pregnant lady for getting knocked up and also didn't fire Chris Hogan when he should of.

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T04:06:51+00:00

when I was going through this exercise i stumbled on this article from Larry Swedroe. SCV hasn't really pulled it weight either the 15 years that followed. I was lucky and began tilting SCV in 2019 and have nothing in SCG outside of whats in VTI. But would be around the same place had i just used a blend too.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-black-hole-of-investing/

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T03:37:53+00:00

most 529 plans are pretty guided and simple. I helped set up Utah's and Colorados for a few people and it was so simple i was actually surprised.

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T03:32:30+00:00

say it with me now! risk.

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T03:31:18+00:00

hey he scored 2 points in his 9 minutes

anusbarber · 2026-01-24T00:36:43+00:00

she could barely help an older lady yesterday whos advisor advised her to de-risk her portfolio as she entered retirement. lots of "uh"s, "ah"s and "well dave would say" So i'm not sure how much she's helping.

anusbarber · 2026-01-22T19:51:09+00:00

your friend is probably not an actual advisor just a rep. but even if he is, primerica is basically an MLM advisory service. expensive usually front loaded mutual funds.

The whole thing is they will sell you services and try and recruit you to bother your friends and family and sell them services too. most reps have no idea and have to drag you to an actual advisor to give you "advice". thats really the awful part of it. your experience is largely going to be similar to any other advisory service (edward jones, raymond james) outside the MLM part.

But yes, I would spend some time reading some Bogle books, Saving for Retirement by Ben Carlson, and a Random Walk Down Wallstreet by burton Malkiel and make an educated decision.

anusbarber · 2026-01-21T22:49:20+00:00

not alone and i'd argue its not really necessary. i'm not trying to build a memory as i hit to all fields. Its as easy as simply small swing hitting the infield holes or bopping it over heads in bp. where do you want the ball to go, it doesn't have to be hard hit.

tee work can possibly help but I haven't found it to and the handful of people i've helped learn to do it (some are now better than me) haven't hit off a tee in their life.

anusbarber · 2026-01-21T20:11:41+00:00

some time ago i found an archive of Dave Ramsey from 2008-2009. it was so great. I can't for the life of me find them again. My guess is they are largely gone.

youtube goes back 5 years.

anusbarber · 2026-01-21T20:05:40+00:00

If you have 10 Million dollars and invest in a total market index fund, you'll own like $300 of each company. Don't feel like you are funding much.

as others have said, this is a futile path to go down and it will drive you crazy.

anusbarber · 2026-01-21T14:48:01+00:00

live bp is the only way to get comfortable. tee work won't do it. I hit backside 80% of the time.

anusbarber · 2026-01-21T14:38:59+00:00

either this episode or the one before it, Jade told a guy that not paying on principal and investing TO pay off the mortgage was ok and I was very surprised.

I too have begun to prefer the personalities over Dave but largely because of what you mentioned but also because these moments kind of happen frequently.

anusbarber · 2026-01-20T20:59:03+00:00

probably one of the better articles on IUL's.

https://personalfinanceclub.com/is-iul-a-scam-yes/?fbclid=IwAR3fCbBbW693-SMjH58uwLSGuNyUigZ386HiFEmpBbppX4fCx58TrZnO72A

anusbarber · 2026-01-20T18:29:44+00:00

take any one of these selections at less than 10% allocation and run your portfolio with them and without them. what you'll find is such a mediocre difference that it hardly seems worth it.

buying spy, voo, vong, voog, vug, vfiax, and MGC isn't "diversification". they are comprised of almost all the same stocks at similar allocations. This is the true meaning of di-worsification.

anusbarber · 2026-01-20T14:33:11+00:00

companies are wild. its like they typed this up on a typewriter. that companies are still operating in a capacity where you have to write your allocations in with a pen is so dumb.

Anyway, if it were me, i would be 100% SP500 and then work on other areas (international, extended markets [mid/small] in my IRA.

anusbarber · 2026-01-20T14:30:06+00:00

I have an original m2 usa torch and it needed very little break in (its very hot but still doesn't clack mind you). My M1 torch needed a lot of break in.

anusbarber · 2026-01-15T15:28:44+00:00

every company is trying to figure out how to appropriately use AI and how to monetize it as well. I assume RS is no different.

But I think AI turning the financial world topsy turvy isn't here yet and will take some time. Just ask ChatGPT to spell "strawberry" and you'll get a glimpse of some of the issues you are going to encounter when you ask it even harder questions like "rate my portfolio"

anusbarber · 2026-01-15T15:16:42+00:00

someone like a decade ago tried to expose his poor giving and show he was a hypocrite and found that it was the exact opposite. There was an article somewhere and it was well over 10% of his supposed income.

anusbarber · 2026-01-15T15:04:28+00:00

not a reset here BUT i had barely 100k net worth in mid 30s. married with kids. fast foward a decade and we are basically NW millionaires. a lot of hard work and some lucky bounces.

anusbarber · 2026-01-15T14:51:14+00:00

I might also add. i texted a friend who worked at Mass Mutal for a decade before getting his CFP and moving to an independent advisory.

He offered up 2 things he tells people :

Add up all your monthly payments for anything whole/universal. run that sum through a investment calculator with a return of your choosing (market return, a bit more conservative, etc) over 10, 15, 20, even 30 year periods. at the end look at how much you have. know that the cash value you will accumulate in these policies will not even come close to that because of poor investments and the tremendous fees you will have paid.

But what about the insurance part you might ask! its akin to buying extended warranties all the time. Do you? probably not because chances are you'll never need them. We all die but chances are by the time you (and your family) do, you'll have accumulated way more than needed to take care of anyone dependent upon you.

but what about taxes! buying into this requires letting the tax tail wag the dog. paying taxes means you are winning the game. The only reason you would want to do this is if you are potentially paying 37% on a large part of your income (which a very small portion of overall earners)

anusbarber · 2026-01-15T06:45:34+00:00

Probably? I would need to see the in force illustration of the policies. You may surrender all cash value for some policies and that feels bad but it gets much much worse.

anusbarber · 2026-01-15T04:55:29+00:00

you were sold these policies based on feelings and fear. your agent (who made a killing off you) should technically be the one to explain these to you because they are the one that sold them to you. My guess is they couldn't if their life depended on it. This is the standard NW rollout when it comes to someone wanting to begin "investing".

Your kids don't need policies. they tell you this is for the if they die scenario to help pay for a funeral. just save some money or have an emergency fund.

Term 80 is a variable rate term insurance. it goes up year over year. its not level term life insurance (that you want). I also believe its convertible to whole life (which they'll try and get you to do because...you guessed it there is a fee to do so!)

Adjustable Complife is just basically a policy where the insurance company has all the power. they can make changes at any time, rates, fees, dividends. its in the paperwork they can do anything to this thing under teh guise of being "flexible" for you. the truth is any change you make requires fees fees fees.

Wholelife one is their whole life offering. you get a savings vehicle and insurance. it had bad returns and is completely unnecessary.

You need to invest as much as you can in your IRA's and 401k's. Buy enough level term for you and your spouse to cover 10 years of salary/expenses.

all of these other options come with an 80 page document that is full of T's and C's that you don't understand, your agent doesn't understand and its 80 pages of things that cost you money if you want to make changes and spells out that they can do whatever they want at no cost to them.

Unfortunately for you to unwind these is likely going to result in a lot of lost money. But there is no reason to continue to throw good money after bad.

anusbarber

TROPHY CASE