We are also independently licensed, which means we are contracted with most insurance companies and can shop carriers to find the best annuities for you. The short answer is, through trial and error, consistency, and hundreds of thousands of words. I see many people throw in the towel after six months.
Think of your fixed index annuity as having two buckets. The “accumulation value” bucket is your real money. This is the account value that will grow with the investment strategy and decrease whenever you withdraw money. In most cases, this value is what you will leave to your beneficiaries when you pass. Fixed index annuities provide principle protection with potential for growth. Your growth is tied to whatever crediting strategy you are invested within the annuity product you choose.
That picture I shared at the beginning of this page? That’s what I enjoy most about writing Investment Talk. Over the years I have been able to talk to investors I’d never dreamed of talking to before; fund managers, tenured professionals, and other analysts. I’ve also been able to connect with hundreds of fellow retail investors, share ideas, make genuine friends, and learn from them.
They are not designed to be a recommendation to buy any specific financial product or service. Products change and such product concepts may not be suitable for your needs or available in your state. The reviews represent the experience of select DE’s clients, which may not be representative of all customers.
All of our agents are licensed in the state of Texas, and have satisfied the required product training for products offered. If you are looking for fixed rates much like a CD, then Fixed Annuities may be right for you. Many Fixed Annuities currently provide annual rates of 2-4%, which beat most CDs.
Strategies that have “caps” can often times limit the amount of growth you could potentially earn. Our licensed annuity experts will educate you on all the different types of annuities out there, and how to find the right fit for you. We will also help you shop Smart Investing so you do not get ripped off or victimized by other smoke and mirror sale tactics. Yes, so long as I feel the integrity of the product or service is worthy of showing to my readers. If you’d like to talk advertising, hit me up on Twitter, my DMs are open.
I originally started writing about my own portfolio, companies and their reported earnings. There are so many investment research, finance, or money blogs out there. The best ones are those where the readers are there to hear what you have to say.
Elsewhere, I am immensely passionate about investing, cooking, and travelling. If you chose to purchase an income rider then you will have a “second bucket” called future income value. This value is a calculation based on your accumulation value growing at a certain rate provided by your income rider. As this value grows, so will the future monthly income dollar amount that the insurance company agrees to pay you and spouse (if joint income rider) for life. In some ways similar to how social security payouts work.
Truth be told, while there are platforms with greater product depth than Substack, I find that it does everything I need and I am content with it for the time being.
The goal for me is to improve the quality of my writing, the value that it brings readers, and how much they enjoy the writing that I share. As a reader, you are always welcome to reach out and say hi. I am a 27-year-old who grew up in Germany & England before migrating back to my homeland of Scotland.
If you are looking for alpha, then let me know if you find any, because I am too. Almost all annuities have a surrender fee schedule. This means that instead of paying an upfront fee or load when you invest, you will only be charged a fee if you pull your money https://investmentalk.com/ out before the initial 10 years. These bonuses do not equal real dollars being instantly added to your account value. While they can serve a purpose for certain annuity strategies, be wary of any agents that use bonuses in their sales presentation to you.
Most annuities allow you to withdraw up to 10% of your money each year for personal income or to satisfy your RMD without a free. This is called “free withdrawals.” Be aware of your annuities surrender fee time-frame and percentages prior to investing. This is something that took me a few years to answer for myself. Investment Talk is where I write articles about the stock market, the companies within it, and human behaviour. I focus on writing about what I find interesting, in a way that will be both enjoyable and informative to the reader. If you are looking for stock picks or advice, then this isn’t the newsletter for you.
The reviews are not indicative, nor do they guarantee future financial success. These riders can provide certain guarantees that may be needed to achieve your specific strategy goals, but make sure you really need them before agreeing to pay for them. We can share a little known strategy that investors are starting to take advantage of converting your 401k or IRAs into future tax-free income if you qualify.
Make sure you fully understand the products before you invest. The most important thing is finding an advisor that you can trust will make recommendations in your best interests, and not try to sell you based on their own agenda. Indrani and John discuss divergence and dispersion in financial markets—where impact … I currently write on Substack but have experimented with several others in the past.
I had been fascinated by how money and businesses work since a young age, and this transgressed into a love affair with investing. To me, the investment landscape is a living-breathing study of human behaviour, and it’s what I am passionate about. Once Investment Talk began building steam in 2020, I left my role as a data jockey at an investment reporting solutions company and focussed on the newsletter full-time. This was possible due to being selected for the Substack Pro program. Here is a memo I wrote in March reflecting on my first three years.