Liquid asset safely earning returns equals LASER focus. That's an acronym. In this episode, I'm
going to share with you and answer "Where is the best place to put money to protect and grow it?"
I'm going to share with you the LASER test and where I serious cash that is earmark for real
serious goals (that's what I mean by serious cash) is in vehicles that pass the laser test.
So, my name is Doug Andrew and I am thrilled that you're here on my YouTube channel 3-Dimensional
Wealth. If you have learn so much about my background, I've been a financial strategist and
retirement planning specialist helping many, many people minimize taxes and empower their authentic
wealth for 45 plus years. In doing that, many times, people will ask the question, "So, where's
the best place to put my money? Because this is serious money. I don't want to jeopardize it. I
don't want to lose it. To be able to protect it and grow it." And I say, "Well, you want to put
it in a vehicle that passes what I call the laser test. So, LASER (again) is an acronym that stands
for liquid asset safely earning returns. So, what I want to do is put my money into
a vehicle or a portfolio that is highly liquid so I can access the money when I need it. It has
safety. I don't lose due to market volatility. It's in a safe institution or repository.
I earn predictable rates of return that's greater than inflation. And I prefer tax-free. Not just
tax-deferred, tax-free. And so, these are the test that I use and I'm going to share with you
why this is so powerful that as you rate different investments or places where you deposit money,
you want to measure against liquidity, safety, rate of return, and tax benefits. And you assign
it a score of 1 to 9. And you rate it on scale of 1 to 10. And you're going to see which investments
rank the highest on that rating scale. So, my most recent best selling book is called The Laser Fund:
How To Diversify And Create The Foundation For Tax-free retirement. This video is not about
selling you a book. I'll gift you a copy of this book for free. I'll show you how at the end of how
you can claim your free copy. But you can see here that there are 4 pillars. And this is where we can
rank any investment, any place people put money based upon a scale of one to 10 with liquidity,
safety, rate of return, and tax benefits. And so, oft times, we go through all kinds of different
places that people traditionally put money to save it. And so, on page 165 of the book,
there is a chart. And it shows how these factors are rated with different types of investments.
So, I'm going to just go to this one here on this screen and use this as an example because
this is what we would put in a workbook. It's in color instead of gray-tones in the book. And so,
when we talk about liquidity, that's the number 1 sort of criteria. In fact, it's more important
than rate of return or even safety. And a lot of people, they get these in reverse order.
So, over here, we always list what we want. And one of the key factors that we want is liquidity.
So, in the book, we go through traditional IRAs and 401Ks in the market. Mutual funds, your house,
CD's and bank savings, annuities, real estate. And here's the question mark. Well, this is the laser
fund, my favorite. And when we go through and we look at the different components or strategies
what we want, we are wanting vehicles that pass the liquidity test ideally with a score of 8,
9 or 10. And so, that's why I like the laser fund because it knocks the socks of all of these other
vehicles. When you look at most IRAs and 401Ks, you cannot access your money very readily without
(what?) a 10% penalty. And you're going to have to pay tax. And so, that's not really a liquid
investment. If we talk about mutual funds, in the market when you need the money the worse,
sometimes it's the worst times to access your money. So, it's fairly liquid. But sometimes,
you have to time the market because you don't want to lose and sell when the market is down.
When we talk about a home, your home equity is not as liquid as you think. When you need it the
worst, it's the hardest to get because most people who are sending extra principal payments against
their mortgage when they get unemployed or they get disabled, they need money, they go to qualify
for a loan or to borrow the equity out of their house and at a lending institution is not going
to loan you the money unless you have the ability to really pay. They don't care how much equity
you have. It has nothing to do with it really. It has mostly to do with your ability to repay.
Now, folks, home equity fails the liquidity test and you can read several of my books to
understand that. Now, CDs and bank savings, yeah, they have a drive-up window with a bank. So,
a lot of people say, "Well, that's liquid." Well a bank in real tough situation, they can stall you
up to 6 months without giving you your money. Did you know that? But most of the time, you
can access money in the bank. So, it would score around 8 or 9 in liquidity. But the rate of return
test is pathetically low. Annuities. Many times, you cannot access your lump sum out of an annuity
especially during the first maybe 5, 6, 10 years. So, they don't pass the liquidity test very well.
Again, real estate is like your house. You cannot access the equity in your real estate unless you
can borrow it out and qualify. If you have rental income, that might give you a little bit of
liquidity. But it doesn't pass the liquidity test as well as my favorite vehicle, the laser fund.
I can access with an electronic funds transfer or a phone call out of my laser fund. It's very,
very liquid. And if things gotten really, really bad in America, after banks close and fold and so
forth based upon the great depression, when banks closed, 40% never reopened again. Where I have my
money, they came through depression with flying colors. And I'll share and how. But liquidity
is the number 1 test. And you want to apply this. Now, in the future test on safety rate of return,
it's the same thing. We go through all of these various investments and we see how they fair and
how they would score on the laser rating system. So, again, the acronym Liquid Assets Safely
Earning Returns spells LASER. This is my most recent best-selling book. It's 300 pages. Actually
2 books in one. This book is comprised of 200 pages, 14 chapters, with all kinds of charts and
graphs and explanations. That's for left-brain people. If you're a right-brain learner,
you flip the book over and you read this one. This one is comprised with 12 chapters.
About 100 pages with 62 chicken soup for the financial soul stories. If you want to use
both your right brain and your left brain, in other words, your whole brain,
I would recommend you read both books. Okay? Now you will read some of the stories here and you
can claim your free copy of this book. At the end of this, I'll give you a link. You contribute a
nominal amount toward the shipping and handling. I'll pay for the rest of that and then I will
buy the book for you. So, don't miss out on that opportunity. Now, I mention that this is on page
165 the book. And this is the left brain side of the book. I showed you the color chart. And with
the laser test, we went through liquidity. So, the number 2 criteria is safety. In fact, that's the
pillars here --liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits here. And so, when we go through
and begin to analyze some of these investments that we talked about in the last little portion,
we're looking at mutual funds, your house, CD's and bank savings, annuities, real estate
and then the laser fund or traditional IRAs or 401(k)s, you look at safety. IRAs and 401(k)s, you
don't have safety of principal. You can lose money because most people have their IRAs or 401(k)s
invested in the market. Mutual funds, you don't have safety of principal. You can lose money.
How about your house? Your house can go down in value. I learn that lesson. My house at one point
was worth 1.5 million. And in one year, it went down in value at 1.1 million. I lost 400,000.
You can lose money in your house. A bank... Hmmm, you're earning a measly 1% but usually, it's FDIC
insured. So, it passes the safety test pretty good. The rate of return test, it fails miserably.
Annuities, hmmm possibly some safety there. Real estate, no. Real estate can go down in value.
The reason I love the laser fund is because I have tremendous safety. I never lose when the
market goes down, EVER. But when the market goes up, I get to participate in the upside potential.
But my money is not at risk in the market. So, I have tremendous safety. In 2001 to 2003,
when most Americans lost 40%, I didn't make much but I didn't lose. In 2008 when Americans lost 40%
in one year, I didn't lose anything. I didn't make much but I didn't lose. In the decade from 2000
to 2010, I doubled my money, the average return was 7.23%. A million doubled to 2 million. Most
Americans did not have safety of principal. They still only had 620,000 to show for their million
10 years earlier. It took 2 more years until 2012 to finally make back what they lost.
Do you know by 2012, many people had 3 million. They made another million in the next 2 years.
This is how you can protect your money instead of having it exposed to risk in the market.
You want to make sure you'll protect it and you grow it predictably but you don't lose. Now,
the next key element in the laser test is rate of return, okay? L-S-R-R. Liquidity, Safety, Rate of
Return. On the same chart on page 165 of this book and I want you to get a free copy of this. Make
sure you claim it at the end here. We go through a rate of return. And as you look at rate of return,
again you look at IRAs and 401(k)s. You look at mutual funds to earn a decent rate of return in
the market DalBar says, the average investor only earns about 3.5%. Because they buy and sell at
the wrong times. How about a home? Sometimes a home will appreciate in value but sometimes
a house will lose value as much as 30 or 40 percent in a recession. And so, you cannot get
a predictable rate of return out of your home or even other real estate which is the last column
over here. It's second to the last column. If we talk about bank accounts, rate of return?
Ugh! on a scale of one to 10, the Laser rating would be like a 1 or 2 because most banks,
credit unions are only crediting about 1% or less. Again, that's pathetic because you're basically
rowing upstream with a rate of 1 mile an hour. And the current of inflation is coming out at 3,
4, 5. You're going backwards. So, a lot of these institutions just fail at the rate of return test.
If you talk about annuities, I've been able to outperform annuities with the same
insurance company with a max-funded insurance contract. And a lot of insurance agents don't
understand how to do this. They think that insurance has expenses that annuities don't.
No. Indexed insurance contracts, I have averaged between 6 to 10 percent. Some years, I've earned
25%. With multiplier as high as 55%. There's not an indexed annuity around that will come close to
that. Okay? So, rate of return is off the charts when I use a max-funded insurance contract. So,
really, when we talk about liquidity, safety, and rate of return; you're beginning to get a score,
a rating system on places where you can put money. You're going to find here that most investments
when you add all of the scores up between those 4, the maximum score you could get would be 40. Most
investments only score 18 to 22 when you add the 4 numbers together. The reason why I like
the laser fund is it scores between 33 to 35 or more in liquidity, safety, rate of return
when you add them all up together. Nothing else comes close. So, let me connect the dots here at
the end of this episode. I've been referring to my mos recent best-selling book, The Laser Fund:
How to Diversify and Create a Foundation for a Tax-Free Retirement. This book is actually 2 books
in 1. This side has 200 pages, 14 chapters with all kinds of charts and graphs and explanations.
This side if for the right-brain thinkers. It contains 62 actual client stories. In this one,
I talk a lot about how to rank or rate investments based upon the laser test. So, again, hence LASER,
the laserfund, liquid assets safely earning returns. So, I've been referring to page 165
of the left-brain side of the book. And so, on that chart, I show all those different types
of investment --your home, real estate, IRAs or 401(k)s, mutual funds, money in a bank or
credit union, annuities, and so forth. And then I compare it to the laser fund. We've gone through
"How do most investments fair according to liquidity?" The ability to access your money. A
lot of them are not very liquid. They fail the liquidity test except maybe the money in the
bank because of the drive-up window. But banks and credit unions score really low on rate of return.
When we looked at safety, maybe the bank has FDIC insured saving accounts. But the rate of return is
less than 1%. It's pretty pathetic. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, some places where people put money
may score 4, 5, 7 or 8. Maybe on safety either a 9 in a bank. But in the market, it's not very safe.
Your house can go down in value. That doesn't score as high as most people think. As far as
rate of return os concerned, you've got to look at the net internal rate of return after all cost
and taxes are taking into account. And that's why After liquidity, safety, and rate of return you
want to look at the tax ramifications. Because if you're earning 9 but you're only netting 6.
Or you're only earning 4 and you're netting 3 after tax. That's pretty pathetic. So,
at the end of the day, you'll find by reading and studying this book. When you look at the most
investments on these 4 pillars --liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits,
so many investments may score high in some of these categories but low on others. I like to add
up all 4 scores. Now a perfect score would be 10, 10, 10, 10 or 40. I've yet to find an investment
that scores a perfect 40. Most investments as you studied them in this book will score between 18
to 22. That's not really satisfactory to me. I would rather have a laser score of more like 33,
34, 35 out of 40. There's only one place where I put my serious cash where I get scores of 33
to 35 points out of a possible 40. And that's in the laser fund. You're going to see why it
passes the liquidity, safey, rate of return test with flying colors. And it's tax-free to boot. So,
do want to learn more? I would recommend you study this book. You can claim your free copy
by going to LASERfund.com. I'll pay for the book. Don't go to Amazon and pay 20 bucks. Don't tell
them I told you that. I will pay for the book. Go to laserfund.com. Contribute a nominal amount
toward the shipping and handling. I'll cover the rest of that coast. And I'll fire out a
free copy to you. And you can begin to read, learn but you can also listen and learn with
an audio version if you want. You can watch and learn. Subscribe to this channel, 3-Dimensional
Wealth. I post an in depth answer to a financial question at least 5 days every single week.
I don't want you to miss out. So, thank you for watching and I will see you in future episodes.