Many investors are told the only path to financial security is to trust Wall Street with their savings, accumulate as much wealth as possible, and hope it all works out decades later. But in a recent episode of Raising Private Money, host Jay Conner sat down with Chris Miles—the Cash Flow Expert—who has taken a dramatically different route. Rather than focusing on traditional stock-driven strategies, Chris has built true financial freedom around creating multiple streams of passive income, helping clients unlock over $300 million in increased cash flow along the way.
Why the Traditional Financial Playbook Falls Short
Chris’s journey began in the traditional world of financial advising. He was taught, and taught his clients, the standard advice: save diligently, fund your 401(k), pay off debt, and wait for compounding returns to deliver financial freedom in retirement. But after analyzing his own dad’s finances, Chris saw firsthand how this advice doesn’t always deliver. Even debt-free savers with healthy retirement accounts can fall short, sometimes outliving their money or missing out on years of opportunity.
This realization fueled Chris’s break from traditional financial advice. He found most advisors couldn’t achieve financial freedom themselves through Wall Street-centric methods—they relied on commissions, not returns from the same products they recommended. Chris sought alternative paths: real estate, hard money lending, mineral rights, and other assets that actually produce cash flow.
The Power of Diversified, Passive Income
What makes Chris’s approach so compelling is its focus on income streams that show up whether you work or not. Instead of chasing net worth for the sake of status, Chris encourages focusing on cash flow—the real scoreboard for financial independence. If your investments generate income that exceeds your expenses, you’re free from the rat race—regardless of how much you have “on paper”.
His investment strategies include turnkey rental properties for hands-off cash flow, hard money lending to earn steady returns from financing others’ deals, and mineral rights investments that benefit from rising commodity prices. Chris also takes advantage of syndications and various forms of business partnerships. The keys are diversity, control, and the ability to pivot as markets shift.
Biggest Mistakes Investors Make
When new clients come to Chris, they almost always have untapped opportunities and a few common financial mistakes holding them back. Taxes are a major issue: many business owners and investors don’t have proactive accountants who help minimize their tax burden. Others still believe maxing out IRAs and 401(k)s is a winning tax strategy, when it may just be deferring higher taxes to later years. Another frequent blind spot is simply not tracking cash flow closely—money leaks from unmonitored expenses can quickly eat away at freedom.
Chris’s process starts by examining clients’ cash flow microscopically, finding places to restructure debt, reduce taxes, or reallocate underperforming assets. Often, it’s possible to build or accelerate passive income just by “freeing up” money already sitting idle in stocks, low-yield accounts, or poorly leveraged properties. For example, by selling a non-cash-flowing rental or repositioning assets, some clients unlock thousands in new monthly income without even taking on new investments.
Cash Flow Versus Net Worth Mindset
Chris is adamant that cash flow, not net worth, is the measure of real progress. Net worth looks impressive, but unless it generates reliable income, it won’t buy time or freedom. Like a business chasing revenue but ignoring profit, an investor can have a high net worth but little spending power or security. Financial freedom is achieved by generating enough passive income to comfortably meet (and exceed) living expenses—no matter what the market does.
Innovative Tools: Infinite Banking
One powerful tool Chris employs and recommends is the concept of “infinite banking.” By structuring whole life insurance policies as high-yield, tax-free savings vehicles, investors can protect cash from lawsuits, keep it liquid for emergencies or deals, and even leverage the account to earn in multiple places at once. This strategy helps further insulate wealth and maximizes opportunity without sacrificing liquidity.
Takeaway: Financial Freedom is a System, Not a Secret
The conversation with Chris Miles is a wake-up call for investors who feel stuck in traditional paths or overwhelmed by financial noise. Financial freedom comes from optimizing cash flow, stacking multiple income streams, being strategic about taxes, and controlling where your wealth goes. Rather than betting on distant appreciation, take the reins and create streams of income you can count on—just like Chris and his clients have done so successfully.
If you’re serious about reshaping your financial future, giving thoughtful attention to where your money flows—and multiplying those flows—can accelerate your journey to true freedom.
10 Discussion Questions from this Episode:
- Jay Conner3 opens the episode by challenging the traditional notion of trusting Wall Street with your investments. How did Chris Miles’s personal story about his father impact his perspective on traditional financial advice?
- Chris Miles calls himself the “anti-financial advisor.” What experiences as a financial advisor led him to take such a contrarian stance, and do you agree with his reasoning?
- The concept of “cash flow” versus “net worth” was a central theme. Why does Chris Miles believe cash flow is a more important metric for financial freedom, and how does it challenge conventional wisdom?
- Chris Miles shared stories about helping clients restructure their debt and assets to create more cash flow. What were some strategies he used, and which did you find the most eye-opening or practical?
- The episode discussed the risk of relying on IRAs and 401(k)s as a primary retirement strategy. What are the pitfalls Chris Miles highlighted, and what alternative solutions did he propose?
- Multiple types of passive income streams were discussed, including turnkey rentals, hard money lending, and investing in mineral rights. Which income stream would you consider pursuing and why?
- Infinite banking was introduced as a tool for liquidity and protection. Based on Chris Miles’s explanation, do you find this concept appealing or confusing? What follow-up questions do you have about how it works?
- Chris Miles emphasized the importance of proactive tax planning over simply relying on accountants. What’s the difference, and how might strategic tax planning impact an investor’s bottom line?
- The idea of diversifying beyond Wall Street and into alternative assets came up several times. How do you currently view risk in traditional versus alternative investments after listening to this episode?
- For those seeking to transition from active to more passive investing, what do you think are the most critical steps, according to Chris Miles? How would you personally start reorienting your financial journey?
Fun facts that were revealed in the episode:
- Chris Miles Retired Twice Before 40
Chris Miles was able to retire not once, but twice, before the age of 40 by focusing on building multiple streams of passive income rather than relying on traditional Wall Street investments. - Cash Flow, Not Net Worth, Is King
Chris Miles emphasizes that cash flow—not just net worth—is the real scoreboard for financial freedom. He believes net worth “fills your ego, but it doesn’t fill your bank account,” and it’s the monthly income that truly provides real freedom. - Infinite Banking Is Lawsuit-Proof in Most States
One of Chris Miles’ favorite strategies is “infinite banking,” where you use a specially designed whole life insurance policy as a tax-free, high-yield savings account. In most states, the cash value in these accounts is 100% protected from lawsuits and creditors—something you can’t say about regular savings accounts or even IRAs.
Timestamps:
00:00 Reevaluating Financial Advice Career
05:48 Financial Freedom Reality Check
09:59 Active to Passive Investment Shift
13:15 Strategic Asset Allocation Guidance
16:11 Maximizing Equity for Cash Flow
18:20 Real Freedom Through Cashflow
22:59 Proactive Tax Strategies Matter
24:11 Rethinking Retirement Tax Strategies
27:14 Whole Life Insurance for Liquidity
29:54 Connect with Chris Miles
32:07 Promote Raising Private Money Podcast
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The Power of Cash Flow: Step-by-Step Strategies for Financial Freedom with Chris Miles
Jay Conner [00:00:01]:
What if the biggest lie in building wealth is that you’re supposed to trust Wall Street with your money? What if the real path to financial freedom is creating cash flow that shows up whether you work or you don’t work? And what if the same strategies that create passive income could also help you fund more real estate deals? Well, today you’re about to find out. Welcome to Raising Private Money. I’m Jay Conner, also known as the Private Money Authority. This is the podcast where we talk about how real estate investors like you can fund more deals, scale faster, and stop depending on banks. Now, today’s guest is a great friend of mine. We’re in masterminds together. His name is Chris Miles. He’s known as the Cash Flow Expert and unapologetic anti-financial advisor.
Jay Conner [00:00:56]:
Now, after seeing firsthand how broken the traditional financial industry really is, Chris walked away from the conventional advice most people follow and built multiple streams of passive income that allowed him to retire not once, but twice, before the age of 40. Chris is the founder of Money Ripples, the author of Work Optional Blueprint, and the host of the top-rated Money Ripples podcast. Now, through his work, he’s helped clients create more than $300 million in increased cash flow and long-term passive income. And here’s why I’m so excited for you to hear this conversation. Chris teaches how to stop relying on Wall Street and start putting your money into assets that actually produce cash flow, which is exactly the mindset successful real estate investors need. In just a moment, you’re going to meet my good friend Chris Miles, right after this.
Narrator [00:02:00]:
If you’re a real estate investor and are wondering how to raise and leverage private money to make more profit on every deal, then you’re in the right place. On Raising Private Money, we’ll speak with new and seasoned investors to dissect their deals and extract the tips and strategies to help you get the money, because the money comes first. Now here’s your host, Jay Conner.
Jay Conner [00:02:27]:
Chris, welcome back to Raising Private Money.
Chris Miles [00:02:31]:
Jay, it’s always fun to be on your show, man. I love it.
Jay Conner [00:02:35]:
I love having you, man. So you call yourself the anti-financial advisor. That’s a pretty bold title. What did you see inside the traditional financial industry that made you say this system is broken?
Chris Miles [00:02:56]:
It is pretty bold. I definitely don’t make a lot of friends among financial advisors, do I? Uh, so yeah, the thing that got me to do that was actually because I was a financial advisor in the early 2000s. I did that for 4 years. I was selling the whole set and forgot it. If you just put your money in mutual funds, ’cause you’ll be diversified if you’re putting your money there in Wall Street, and if you just set it there forever, you’ll beat real estate, you’ll beat everything because the stock market’s the best place to be, and in 40 years you’ll be financially free. Well, 4 years in, my dad reaches out, and he says, w” Well, Chris, when are you gonna advise me? Understand that my dad was the penny-pinching, post-Depression era mentality saver. He’s the kind of guy that Dave Ramsey says, I want to be like Ron Miles when I grow up. That’s the kind of guy my dad was, right? He was the cheap penny-pinching guy, stuffing his money, saving it, and that’s all he taught me as a kid.
Chris Miles [00:03:44]:
So naturally, I became a financial advisor because it was familiar to me. Well, as I sat down with him and I looked at his— oh, his finances, he opened up all of his books. I saw that he had paid off his house in 18 years. He was 100% debt-free. He had been stuffing money in his company’s 401(k), getting the match as well. For decades. And at the end of it— this is at the end of 2005— at the end of this meeting, I have to tell him, I said, ” Well, Dad, here’s the deal. You’re 61 years old.
Chris Miles [00:04:10]:
If you try to retire right now with the money that you have and the fact that you’re debt-free, you would need to die in about 5 or 6 years because that’s when you’re going to run out of money. And my dad said,” Well, that’s not what I wanted to hear. You’re supposed to tell me how I can retire, not retire and then have to go back to work again when I’m in my 60s and 70s. And I said, it’s like, so he said, well, what do I do? What’s the answer? I said, I don’t know. You did everything right, from what I teach as a financial advisor. Just keep saving, keep working. And that’s what he did. He worked into his 70s until he wasn’t able to work anymore.
Chris Miles [00:04:45]:
He got a few decent years, a little bit of freedom. And then pretty soon his health was so bad that he was bedridden for the last 5 years of his life. In fact, he just passed away last December. 81 years old, literally broke. All he had was equity in his houses, and that was it. You know, he had no cash left. In fact, we were paying for his home health care. And that’s the thing, is that when I had that meeting with him, it really disturbed me that he was living the just the absolute poster child model of what I was teaching.
Chris Miles [00:05:17]:
And I was seeing my future because I was living by the same way I was teaching my clients to live by the same way. And I saw my future. That didn’t look good. And I didn’t want to believe it. And it was just a month later that a friend of mine, who was supposed to be a financial advisor, but then he left to go do real estate investing. He was a flipper. And I’m talking to him, and he says, Chris, my dad and I— because his dad was doing the hard money lending— he’s like, my dad and I partnered on some deal,s and we’ve now doubled his income as a professor at the local university. I said, how is that possible? You just started doing this months ago.
Chris Miles [00:05:48]:
This is too good to be true. That’s impossible. My financial advisor brain won’t allow it. And he finally just asked me, he said, ” Well, Chris, how many of our clients are financially free where they don’t worry about money? I said, well, none. Even the retired ones still worry about outliving their money. Great job, Chris. How about this? How many of you guys, as financial advisors, are financially free, not off the commissions you’re earning, but actually doing the investments you’re recommending? And when I was really honest with myself, and I did this mental inventory of about 100 advisors in my office, including advisors who’ve been there since the 1970s. And I had to say and admit, I said, you know what, I don’t know if any of them can.
Chris Miles [00:06:30]:
There’s your problem, Chris. And so I started asking him, well, what do I do? He didn’t want to help me at first because he thought I was just all about Wall Street. And I told him that real estate was crap. But now I realized, okay, maybe Wall Street’s crap. So, uh, so he of course had me read a book called Who Took My Money by Robert Kiyosaki. It’s a lesser-known Rich Dad book that says mutual funds suck. And then he had me listen to this AM talk radio show— this is pre-podcast era, right? Um, this radio show, these two real estate investors here in Utah. And I got hooked.
Chris Miles [00:07:01]:
I got hooked. And eventually, after a few months, I realized I had a choice. Either I stay in financial advising and keep teaching the lie, or I leave it. And so I chose the latter. I left. I said, I’ll never teach about money again. I will be a mortgage broker because, in 2006, anybody could be a mortgage broker. And I will teach ballroom dancing on the side. And that’s what I was doing while eventually starting to learn about real estate investing,g and even things like I could hard money lend my money and start making money that way, and cash flow,w and things like that.
Chris Miles [00:07:31]:
So eventually, as I got into that real estate world a little bit, I was able to retire myself. I only needed $3,500 a month to live with my small family. I was able to have $4,000 or $5,000 a month coming in passively, which I was barely working at, maybe a few hours a week at most. And, uh, and that’s what blew my mind, is like, wait a minute, I could literally just quit. I could quit being a mortgage broker. I could just retire. And naturally, people want to know, how’d you do it, Chris? And so friends and family started asking me that. Eventually, I came out of retirement in 2007 to start coaching people how to do it.
Chris Miles [00:08:05]:
And you mentioned I retired twice. Well, that’s because I screwed up the first time. After all. After all, the recession hit. All of a sudden, real estate’s going to crap. The real estate investors I’m training are mostly flippers, and they were all broke because they didn’t have any money. And so as a result, I found myself going from financially independent to all of a sudden now in the hole about $16,000 a month, to where eventually by the end of 2007, going into 2008, I was over $1 million in debt. And I eventually had to pivot in business. I stopped teaching people how to get out of the rat race because I was now back in it. Started teaching people how to find and free up cash because that’s what I was doing in my own life.
Chris Miles [00:08:44]:
I wasn’t telling them I was broke. I was just telling them, ” Hey, I can help you find money. And that’s what I was doing during the recession. Was able to finally dig out of that debt hole. And then by the end of 2016, I retired for the second time. Had enough passive income coming in that I was now what I call work optional. And that’s what I—
Jay Conner [00:09:00]:
Well, Chris, we now know why you are known as the anti-financial advisor. So now let’s start diving a little deep here. What are, what were, and what are some of the key income streams and strategies that you deploy, that you also use, and that you also share with your clients?
Chris Miles [00:09:22]:
It depends on the market. I’ll just tell you about all of them in general, although depending on the market, they can shift around. This is the beauty of real estate and alternative investments. Understand that, as a financial advisor, no one taught me that I could do alternative investments. Yeah, I heard about people renting houses, right? You know, doing those as rentals. And I would tell people all the time, well, appreciation’s less than the stock market, so don’t do that. But I realized later that it wasn’t about the value of the asset, it’s about the income. And so, for example, when I teach people, most people come to me for the investing aspect because they want to be hands-off investors.
Chris Miles [00:09:59]:
I’ve even had some active investors say, ” You what?” You what, I’m sick and tired of being an active investor. I want to be the passive one. I want to take all the money I’ve been making from investing and creating passive investments. And so, for example, turnkey rentals were great a few years ago, not so much the last few years, but turnkey rentals where somebody else can manage the property is perfect, especially if you’re like me whe, where I live in the western half of the US, and rentals suck. But I can go buy a property out near you, Jay. You know, I can go buy properties out in that direction and make much better cash flow, get better prices, better rent in comparison than I would out west. And so I can do that, where I can get property managers to manage the property for me. I buy it, but ultimately it’s my property,y and I get the profits from it.
I’ve also done hard money lending. That’s been more of the darling for the last few years, right? Because lending has definitely been a safer route to take. You know, even short-term type lending or going to lending funds. You know, it’s great to know that I can make 1% a month on my cash. You know, every $100,000 can pay me $1,000 a month. I don’t do jack squat. I love it. Another one that I’ve been doing in the last several years is mineral rights.
Chris Miles [00:11:05]:
Obviously, we’ve been hearing more and more in the news about crude oil, you know, and the gas prices going up and everything else. Well, hey, if they’re going to go up on me, I have to pay more at the pump, I might as well get paid on the investment side too. So I have business partnerships with that. You know, there are things like raw land I can get involved with where,e again, I’m the partner that finances it, but I’m hands-off. They do the work. I’m the 70% partner that finances it all. You know, I’ve done— I actually have one I put over $500,000 into that now, which is generating over $12,000 a month, about $150,000 a year. You know, things like even like cations, of course, of various sorts, whether it be in multifamily, self-storage, even done better the last few years, cause those got kicked in the teeth.
Chris Miles [00:11:46]:
Industrial had done great, didn’t have any issues at all with industrial. So things like that. But there are just so many available options that most people never realize, ’cause a financial advisor either one, doesn’t know about themselves, or two, will never tell you about them because they never get paid a commission for recommending those things.
Jay Conner [00:12:05]:
Wow, what you went over there, Chris, truly is multiple, multiple streams and opportunities. So when you consult with and advise your clients, when you’re doing consulting with them, um, is part of your consulting advising them based on where they are, you know, what their asset classes look like? Um, do you advise them on what could probably be the best avenues to get involved in? Because there are so many to choose from.
Chris Miles [00:12:38]:
Correct. That’s exactly it. Yeah, so we’re not investment advisors. We never cross that line to say you should invest here, you should invest there. But what we do do— do do, that doesn’t sound very good, sounds kind of stinky. What we actually do is, as we do go in deep, we look at their cash flow very, very meticulously in the sense that we’re looking at money coming in, money going out. Like, you know, even on the simple, you know, do you have debt that’s coming in, you know, that’s going out, that may be restructured and done differently to improve your cash flow. Can we reduce taxes, especially if you have a business owner, or if you’re not a business owner, you can create a side hustle to get more tax benefits, you know, things like that.
Chris Miles [00:13:15]:
But then we start to look at where ‘ wheres ‘ resets, you know, where can we actually liquidate some assets, whether it’s sitting in cash or not, and get that money to work for you to generate income now. And that’s where we do kind of mix and match and figure out, like, okay, based on your situation and your goals and your time horizons, what kind of investments work best in that environment? Not just going all in on one investment, but also to diversify in different places. And of course, yes, we got a network of people that I’ve invested with because people always ask, they’re like, well, Chris, who have you trusted? Who have you used? And so we kind of open up, you know, my Rolodex, so to speak, for those of us old enough to remember what a Rolodex is. I guess for us now, it’d be, you know, open up my, you know, my AirDrop phone or whatever it might be, you know. But that’s what we do. So we kind of help guide people. We never say you should do this, but we do educate them, help them know how to do due diligence to know what could be a good fit. And we give our honest opinions.
Chris Miles [00:14:09]:
If you know, if we say, hey, this, this could be risky, you know, we will let them know, listen, there’s a good element of risk here. There’s risk with everything, but this might be really risky, you know. And so if they have their own deals, they might ask us to give them, you know, our opinion of what it is. And so that’s the thing. I’ll give an example of one client. They came to us only because they wanted to diversify into real estate. Both of them, you know, one worked in business, the other one worked as a consultant in the tech space. They had $5 million between Google and Meta stocks, so very tech-heavy.
Chris Miles [00:14:45]:
And they’re saying, you know, we should probably diversify because tech is a little bit volatile, right? So they came to us, saying help us find what real estate investments are out there. Now, as they did that, as we started to look at the cash flow first— and this is kind of the first step of the process, we’re always looking at the cash flow, long-hanging fruit, where’s the money leaks, right? And we realized that their goal was initially to get to $23,000 a month of passive income because that’s where their expenses were. That would make them financially independent. But when I looked at it, I said, well, “at your debt. Even though they were making, you know, $800 grand plus a year of income, they still have some different debts in different places. And so I said, you know, if we refinance your mortgage, lower the payment there, even do a cash-out refi, we can pay off these specific debts based on an equation I call the cash flow index. So, if we pay off these specific debts, we’ll free up $3,800 a month with no money out of pocket. So right there, that’s $45,000 a year in your pocket for free.
Chris Miles [00:15:36]:
That’s an infinite rate of return. And I said, second, I know— I’m pretty sure, based on the amount of taxes you’re reporting here on your spreadsheet, I bet you we could probably do some tax saving strategies to help you. Here’s our CPA. Go talk with them and see what you can do. They talked to the CPA, found out they were overpaying by at least $30,000 to $40,000 a year in taxes unnecessarily, they’, re paying. So right there, so already we’re already $75,000, $80,000 a year. Then I see they have a rental property, and I say,” Well, how much is this cash flowing? It says zero. They’re like, ” No, it’s zero.
Chris Miles [00:16:11]:
‘But you’ve got $200,000 of equity in this thing, but you make no cash flow.’ ‘Yeah, we’re not cool.’ ‘Why don’t we look at maybe selling that property, and then could you take those proceeds and invest them elsewhere, even if you bought another property, just cash flows better?’ So they did, and of course, now they start creating another $2,000 a month. So now we have created over half, over $100,000 a year, without again investing a dime. Then we finally said, ‘Great, now the stocks.’ “What cWhate do?” And because remember, that $100,000 a year reduced costs for them, right? As well as increasing some income. Now the nut to crack wasn’t so hard to get to. And so I said, “Well, now all we have to do is really, you could literally just cash out $1.5 million, $2 million of your stocks, keep still $3 million in these stocks, use those to go into real estate in different places here. And you will generate this year over that, roughly, almost $300,000 a year.” I mean, if they cash out everything, they give you over $600,000 a year, but I was being realistic. I knew they wouldn’t cash out every little bit of stock they had. But that’s the fun part, right? It’s just these people don’t even know what’s possible.
Chris Miles [00:17:14]:
They don’t even realize what’s available to them. And to take them from, gee, I hope I can retire in 20 years, to, oh, I can do it now— that’s the rewarding part for us.
Jay Conner [00:17:26]:
That is amazing, Chris. You know, most people are taught to focus on net worth. You teach people to focus on cash flow. So it may seem like a simple question, but just to be sure, in your opinion, why is cash flow the real scoreboard when it comes to financial freedom?
Chris Miles [00:17:49]:
Yeah, net worth fills your ego, but it doesn’t fill your bank account, right? Let’s be honest, uh, it’s kind of like people in business. It’s like when people in business tell you like Oh yeah, man, like our revenue jumped up to $20 million this year. Cool, how much profit did you have? Oh, I paid in $100 grand. Yeah, I had a $100,000 loss. Well, who gives a crap about how much you make as a company revenue? We care about what the bottom line is. That’s where cash flow comes in. No one gives a crap about net worth ultimately. I mean, other than trying to brag about it.
Chris Miles [00:18:20]:
But at the end of the day, the real freedom comes from having income coming in. When you know you have more than enough income coming in than what’s going out. When you have that abundance of cash flow, that is where your life is abundant. That’s where you create real freedom. And I think that’s the part that so many people miss. Remember, in financial advising, the focus is always on accumulation, right? Accumulate and grow your nest egg to be so big. But it’s never usually about, well, how do I actually have income in a reasonable amount of time? I’ll give you another example. There’s a guy who reached out to me recently.
Chris Miles [00:18:55]:
He found our Money Ripples podcast, and he said, listen, like, I’m 59 and a half years old. I just turned. I’ve got almost $2 million sitting in my 401(k) right now that I could use. I went to my Vanguard financial advisor, and when I asked them, when can I retire? And when they asked me, how much income do you want? I said, $200,000 a year. And they wouldn’t give me an answer. Chris, he’s like, they, they, they didn’t give me a timeline. They didn’t say how much longer I have to work or how much more I need. He didn’t have an answer for me.
Chris Miles [00:19:25]:
And I told him, I said, listen, having been a financial advisor, one of two things is possible. There could be a third, but there aren’t many scenarios. One, either because he doesn’t know how to calculate it, or two, he’s afraid to give you the answer. Because I’ll give you the answer right now. If you want to retire in your 60s, people talk about the 4% rule. BS. 4% rule was debunked so many years ago. It’s just people trying to sell you crap.
Chris Miles [00:19:50]:
They still believe it works. Dave Ramsey, one of those people, thinks it’s an 8% rule, and that’s even worse. Even his own co-host argued with him on that point. But it’s a 3% rule if you’re in your 60s, 4% if you’re in your 70s, because they think you could probably last 20 to 30 years on 4%. So that’s because people are living longer. That’s why they say you have to wait till your 70you’re 70, you’re living on the 4% rule. 3% during the ’60s. I said, if you want to be 3% based on having $200,000, that means you’ve got to have roughly just about $7 million saved up.
Chris Miles [00:20:20]:
You’ve got about $2 million. You’re already in the top few percent of retirees right now, and yet you still have to have pleasure in your money. I said, it can— I mean, the thing is, you can easily be working until you’re 70 if you keep saving and you hope that the market smiles on you just the right way. You could make it by the time you’re 70. And here’s his answer, Jay. He said, Chris, I don’t mind working until I’m 70. I just want to be forced to work till I’m 70. I don’t have to feel like I have to work till I’m 70.
Chris Miles [00:20:49]:
And I asked him, I said, here, get rid of the whole accumulation theory that they’ve been teaching you for literally your entire adult life, which is set and forget it, which makes money for the banks and the institutions, not for you. Vanguard loves it. The financial advisor loves it. He makes money whether you make money or not. He’s the only one who’s steered that financial prosperity from this, not you. I said, instead, look at it this way. You’ve got $1.9 million in your 401(k). If you were just to take that money and invest in different places, and on the low end, usually investments we look at are like 10% a year, usually 10% to 12%.
Chris Miles [00:21:24]:
It’s kind of the typical range that we see, depending on the type of agreements or contracts you have in place. So let’s just say you get on the low end, 10%. What’s 10% of 100— of, of $1.9 million? $190,000 a year, right? What’s your goal? $200,000 a year, correct. Now I’ve also noticed that you have a property with about $800,000 of equity. What’s your cash flow? $300 a month. I’m like, okay, that’s crappy. You can go cash that out and put money in a CD and make more money. What if we sold that property, got the equity out, and let’s just say you’re left with $700,000 after paying you know, those sales commissions.
Chris Miles [00:22:02]:
$700,000 making 10%, that’s now $70,000 a year. That puts you at $260,000 a year, over a quarter of a million dollars a year. Do you realize you can either gamble and hope and pray that you make it to age 70 before you can finally retire in the stock market, or you can get your money working harder for you right now, generating income? And that’s acceleration of money. And you can actually now retire this year. Which would you rather have? The answer is pretty obvious.
Jay Conner [00:22:30]:
That’s brilliant, Chris. I love how you’re using the different strategies and stacking them together. You’ve helped your clients create over $300 million in increased cash flow. When you have a new client comes to you for the first time, what are you noticing as some of the biggest trends or financial mistakes that your clients have been making before they sit down and visit with you?
Chris Miles [00:22:59]:
Yeah, I mentioned a few of them in that story with the person who had a million in stocks because they had a lot of the same ones. Uh, taxes are a big one, right? I mean, if they’re a business owner, most likely, even if they’re newer in business or not even making a huge amount of money, often we can find at least $5,000, $10,000 a year just by using strategies. The problem is that most people have an accountant, but they don’t have a proactive accountant, a strategist, or someone on their team. They have somebody who can impute the numbers you give them, but they’re not giving you strategies to reduce your tax burden. And no, this is one of the biggest mistakes I see, and this is true even among real estate investors. No, saving into your IRAs or 401(k)s is not a tax-saving. That’s complete BS because the truth is it’s a tax deferral strategy. You’re just pushing off your taxes to a future date.
Chris Miles [00:23:48]:
Here’s the problem: especially if you’re a real estate investor, it’s even worse. The problem is that if you have an IRA, right, you don’t pay tax now. You’re like, ” Oh, cool, I got the little deduction on it. Well, no, you just delayed your income, which is what you did. But now going down the road, let’s just say that maybe you wind down your real estate a little bit. Maybe you start to slow down. Now you don’t have all the active expenses you have from your business. Two, if you paid off your house, you don’t have all the mortgage interest right now.
Chris Miles [00:24:11]:
3, your kids are grown up and hopefully grown up and out of the house. Right. But you don’t have your kids to support anymore to get that write-off. You’ve lost all your write-offs, and you just pushed off your IRA to whatever age they tell you it needs to be because the government makes all the rules, not you, to be 59 and a half or whatever age it is at that time. Guess what? You’re now paying taxes potentially at a higher tax rate, especially right now with the Trump tax plan. We’re at one of the lowest brackets in the 110-year history of the federal tax rate. So do you think taxes are going to go up or down in the future, especially considering how much debt we’re racking up in the trillions of dollars every year? Everybody will say it’s going up. Well, why? When the heck would you go and put your money in IRAs and 401(k)s only to know you’re going to get taxed more? Don’t you think the government knows that, and that’s why they’re pushing those on you, those little products? That’s why.
Chris Miles [00:24:58]:
It was a little rant. I’m sorry, but that’s a big problem, in that people are investing in— especially real estate investors. If you’re putting your money in the stock market, oh my goodness, why would you invest in everybody else’s company but your own, right? Why would you put your money in something you have zero control over when you have more control investing in your own business? Do that first. Forget Wall Street. Wall Street’s a joke. It’s high risk, mediocre returns, you know. And of course, people, you know, not tracking their money. That’s also common among real estate investors, not tracking what’s coming in and going out, both in business and at home.
Chris Miles [00:25:26]:
You know, those kinds of things, all kinds of leaks happen just from not watching your money. It’s the law of attention. Whatever you pay attention to will improve. It will grow. But whatever you ignore will leave you. If you ignore your spouse, she’s going to leave you. You ignore your kids, they’ll leave you. You ignore your health, and it’ll leave you.
Chris Miles [00:25:42]:
You ignore your teeth, and they’ll leave you. If you ignore your money, it will leave you too. If you just start to pay attention to your money, start to track it on a weekly basis. I do this in my own company, and I report it to my team. So there’s full transparency there. I let them know what’s going on. That keeps me more accountable. It keeps me looking at what’s going on, and that can help me plug up those money leaks that could be leaking out of my company, especially with subscriptions and AI stuff, and this and left and right.
Chris Miles [00:26:06]:
You don’t know half the things you’re paying for anyway. You might be able to reduce costs and get yourself lean and mean so that there is another real estate debacle in your life or in your business, you can pivot. You don’t have to lay off 3/4 of your workforce as a lot of real estate investors did over the last few years. So there you have it.
Jay Conner [00:26:23]:
Chris, that is brilliant, brilliant advice. Um, one thing that you talk about and that you’re an expert in is this thing called infinite banking. On a very, very simple, simple level, explain what infinite banking is and, uh, why do you like it?
Chris Miles [00:26:44]:
Yeah, I was on the Ryan Pineda Show recently, and, um, and he’s like, hey, I’ve had 5 other guests talk about this. I don’t get it, honestly. And so here’s what it is, right? In fact, by the time I got done, after just a few minutes, he’s like, everybody should be doing this. In fact, I should be doing this. Even after he was skeptical. It’s a tax-free high-yield savings account that’s 100% protected from lawsuits and creditors in most states. Almost nowhere other than a 401(k), which we just talked about, was crap. It’s like locking your money in prison.
Chris Miles [00:27:14]:
But if you want to have liquid cash available, especially for your deals, or for even just having it as an emergency fund, you want to have liquid cash available instead of earning 0.0% that you get taxed on in a bank account. Instead, I keep my actual money, most of it, in my whole life insurance policy. Most people think of whole life insurance as just death insurance, but the benefit of whole life is that, yeah, there are costs that come out for the death benefit, but the way I’ve designed it for myself, and now I’ve started to do it for clients too, is that we reduce the cost as low as possible. So more of it, instead of going to pay for really tt’s commissions, that’s the big lie that’s out there. Instead of paying for all the insurance costs and the agent’s commissions, instead mt goes into this tax-free high-yield savings account paying a, bout 6% a year right now. And in most states, it’s 100% protected from lawsuits and creditors. This means if you have millions of dollars stored here, no one, and I mean no one— well, okay, the IRS can get to anything, even your Cayman Islands account, right? But other than that, no one can get to this money. This is— I mean, I’ve had real estate investors that have been sued, especially over the last few years, where the real estate’s been bad deals and things like that.
Chris Miles [00:28:25]:
They’ve been sued by investors, and this is the only place that even when those investors might win, this is the only place they can’t tap into those funds. It’s the only place that’s safe. Where is your savings account? Gone. Your home equity, gone, right? Like, depending on if they can pierce the corporate veil or not, right? Like, all those things. Your IRAs, they can tap into those, right? They can get Roth IRAs, you name it. Your 529 kids’ savings plans, you got it, they can get to it. But your life insurance, they cannot. And so I use it not as just so much of a death benefit, even though that’s a nice additional perk, of course, that I have a way to create a legacy plan for my family.
Chris Miles [00:29:02]:
But I use this as my Swiss Army knife where I can not only be able to store my cash and make more money on it and protect myself, but also it too. But then, even when I do decide to use it for investments beyond just my emergency fund, for my business and my personal, I can also use this money to make money in two places at once because I can get a secure line of credit against it with no minimum monthly payment. I can pay back whenever I want and use that money at a low rate to then go invest elsewhere. So they keep paying me all my money tax-free while I pay low interest to them. That’s, you know, could be a tax write-off for business purposes, and I’m investing it too. So I’m able to make money in two places at the same time.
Jay Conner [00:29:39]:
That’s the power of it. That is powerful, Chris. My lands, you’ve shared so many powerful ideas here on the show about cash flow, breaking away from the traditional financial playbook. So, for our listeners who are thinking, I need to learn more about this stuff from Chris and start applying it to my own investing and income strategy, what’s the best way for them to connect with you and learn more about the work that you’re doing?
Chris Miles [00:30:10]:
Yeah, you can go anywhere that’s Money Ripples, whether it’s moneyripples.com. We have the Money Ripples podcast on all platforms, including YouTube. And of course, we have @MoneyRipples on social media. Now, if you’re one of those people like him, I want to read a book and kind of get the stuff from it. I’ve got the Work Optional Blueprint that actually just came out, uh, back in November. And so it became a bestseller. The Work Optional Blueprint really breaks down what it’s about, how you get lean, how you free up that cash flow, how you get liquid, get that money in your power and possession, and then get it out to create passive income.
Jay Conner [00:30:39]:
So that book again is the Work Optional Blueprint, the Work Optional Blueprint. Live Free, Be Wealthy, Make a Difference: The Work Optional Blueprint. What’s the best way for them to get that book, Chris?
Chris Miles [00:30:52]:
You know, Amazon is a great place.
Jay Conner [00:30:55]:
Amazon. Simple enough. All right.
Chris Miles [00:30:56]:
Amazon. In a few months, it might be an audiobook too.
Jay Conner [00:31:00]:
And you got it in audio form?
Chris Miles [00:31:01]:
It will be in a couple of months.
Jay Conner [00:31:03]:
Yep. Okay. Nice. So, uh, you can get that on Amazon. And then again, that URL, um, www.moneyripples.com. And search for Money Ripples anywhere, and you’ll find it. Chris, thank you so much for joining me. I mean, you always bring the most brilliant ideas for creating cash flow.
Jay Conner [00:31:24]:
Thank you so much, Chris, for joining me.
Chris Miles [00:31:27]:
You’re welcome, Jay. Thanks for having me on.
Jay Conner [00:31:28]:
All right. Well, there you have it. Another powerful episode of Raising Private Money. My friend Chris Miles just pulled back the curtain on what it really means to create cash flow and financial freedom outside the traditional financial system. And here’s the big takeaway, at least for me. When you focus on cash flow instead of just chasing net worth, you start building a life where the money works for you instead of you working for the money. Now, if you found value in today’s episode, I’ve got a favor to ask of you. Don’t keep this episode and this show a secret.
Jay Conner [00:32:07]:
Share this episode with a fellow real estate investor, text it to a friend, post it on social media, or better yet, tell someone in your network about Raising Private Money Podcast. You see, the more people we reach, the more investors we help learn how to fund their deals without relying on banks, hard money lenders, or their own cash. And if you haven’t done it already, be sure to subscribe to the podcast. And leave us a rating and a review. This helps us get the show out in front of more real estate investors just like you. I’m Jay Conner, the Private Money Authority, and I look forward to seeing you right here on the next episode of Raising Private Money.
Narrator [00:32:50]:
Are you feeling inspired by the knowledge you gained in this episode? Then head over to www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. That’s www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. Jconner.com/moneyguide and download your free guide that shares 7 reasons why private money will skyrocket your real estate investing business right now. Again, that’s www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide to get your free guide. We’ll see you next time on Raising Private Money with Jay Conner.