Buy A Home & Retire Richer With Crypto & Other Proven Strategies
July 17, 2023
In today's economy everyone is looking for an edge.
But few know where to find it.
In this post we’ll talk about some home buying and retirement strategies that are proven to work. Some strategies are lower-risk traditional and conventional, and others are higher-risk unconventional and speculative. Speculative investments are ideal for those who have a bold risk appetite, are eager to take risks with their money, and have a longer runway until retiring. They’re also for those who want to accelerate the savings for a down payment and closing cost. If you’re looking for an edge in savings to buy a home with, you can make a lot of money in a short period of time investing in speculative alternative investments, but don’t forget about the risks associated with them.
In a previous blog post we talked about how to get $375,000 out of your mortgage to save for retirement. Instead of your mortgage working for the bank, it works for your retirement. If you ask any serious financial planner, they’ll tell you a home is a terrible investment. It is.
But you don’t buy a home for the investment, although you do anticipate and hope it gains value over time. You buy a home for the memories and for your family to live; and for your own peace of mind and comfort. But let’s talk about dollars and cents, the bottom line of owning a home (or having a mortgage on a home).
Look at this real-world example for how much the Total Interest Percentage (TIP) totals that you pay back on a mortgage:
30-Year fixed rate mortgage
$175,750………Loan amount
5.99%...............Fixed interest rate
$1,052.58/mo…Principal & Interest payment
$234,446………Total amount the loan will cost you
= 116.099% Total Interest Percentage
“Total amount of interest that you will pay over the loan term as a percentage of your loan amount.”
Source: Page 5 of the Final Closing Disclosure
So, why buy a home in the first place then?
People buy homes to realize their personal aspirations about owning their own home, raising a family, being king of the castle, and simply having a place at the end of the day to call home. You buy a home and pay on it for the next 30 years for your own peace of mind about where you lay your head to rest at the end of the day. For many it’s the entry point into financial stability, security, and the foundation of all wealth creation. Their home is their nest egg, and the biggest purchase they’ll ever make, along with the most valuable asset going into retirement.
Smart homeowners look for ways to leverage their mortgage to benefit their retirement, not the bank’s balance sheet. In a previous blog post we covered a few different ways to do this. One such way, refinancing into a lower rate, allows you to save money instead of sending it to the bank every month. Then, you can invest this money and get a big return building your retirement fund. Proper structuring of your mortgage in relation to where rates are can give you a big advantage and boost other strategies well. After all, the “eighth wonder of the world”, as Albert Einstein called compound interest, works better the more money you have, and the londer it runs generating yield in investments.
Basic Retirement Strategies That Are Proven To Work
Free Company Match Money
Who doesn’t like free money? If your company offers any kind of retirement match, take it, or else you’re stupidly leaving money on the table, as they say. This especially applies to younger workers because rule #1 in saving for retirement is to save as much as you can as early as you can, then let the eighth wonder of the world works its magic. Whether this is applying to a company match for profit sharing, 401(k), or 403(b), if your company is offering you $, take it. You’re an idiot not to, and you’ll kick yourself in the future for not doing this early enough and with every opportunity you had to do it.
As a baseline, at the bare minimum, you should contribute whatever the company matches to your retirement. So, if the company matches up to 3%, contribute 3% (you should contribute more, but again, this is strictly the minimum contribution you should make). Matching 3% gives you a 6% total contribution. That will really add up over time in addition to giving you important tax benefits. And while you can make retroactive contributions, there are restrictions, but most importantly, you can’t make up for lost time earning compound interest.
Ideally, you should contribute to maximum allowable by law, which is based on your age.
401(k) Maximum contribution:
$22,500 younger than 50
$30,000 50 years or older
Roth IRA Maximum contribution:
$6,500 younger than 50
$7,500 50 years or older
This first strategy is really the best one to do right away, so long as your company offers matching contributions. If they don’t, do the second one (or do all of them at the same time for the best results).
Whatever you plan on contribute, double it.
Unless you become uber wealthy, when you look back on your life, you’ll never regret saving too much for retirement. While this is not a budget lesson, with the amount of money that we waste, you can find a way to save double, no matter what investment vehicle it goes into. Many retirees say they wish they’d planned better for retirement after unexpectedly finding themselves on a smaller budget due to the rising cost of living. Lots of people have to go back to work after they retire, delay retirement to an older age, or make uncomfortable lifestyle changes.
Some teachers, nonprofit employees, and healthcare and public sector workers have the opportunity to contribute twice as much to their 457(b) and 403(b) retirement plans because of certain catch-up provisions.
If you don’t think you can afford to double what you save, consider how much money you waste on coffee, lattes, or eating out. It’s probably a lot. Famed money guru Suze Orman says you can easily waste $1 million dollars buying coffee every day. If you don’t buy it every day, how much do you spend on it? The point is that there’s always something to cut out of your budget, some waste, something you can easily do without by thinking long-term instead of getting your caffeine or sugar rush every day. If you don’t think there’s anything to cut, and perhaps there’s not, but it’s always good to do an analysis by tracking your monthly expenses to see where your money is going.
In fact, a 2020 survey by the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study on Americans over 50 found that:
- 60% regretted not savings more for retirement
- 40% regretted not buying long-term care insurance
- 37% regretted not working longer
- 23% regretted taking Social Security too early
Save More For Retirement
While it sounds simple, it’s really true: the more you save, the better off you’ll be. This is why it’s important to save as much as you can as early as you can. Simply put, the future is hard to predict, even with a good plan. Unexpected family, medical or lifestyle events may force you to deviate from you plan. And when that happens, you’ll be thankful you saved more than you thought you’d need.
Buy Long-term Care Insurance
Not having long-term care insurance costs retirees a lot of money in their later years, and can absolutely eat away at the retirement savings faster than anything else. According to Genworth's 2021 Cost of Care Survey, assisted living in Florida costs on average about $4,000 per month, but can be more depending on where you live in Florida. Long-term care insurance can help absorb some of the financial cost of getting assistance with the activities of daily living. Long-term care insurance can be expensive, and premiums can increase over time.
Work Longer
Nobody wants to hear this but it could save you a lot of heartache in your later years. Everyone wants to retire in peace and comfort. In order to do so, you really need a good plan that has you saving more than you think you’ll need. If working an extra one or two years gets you to this point, it’s well worth it. After all, you’re going to go through an initial shock of working for 40 - 50 years, then suddenly stopping. You have a lot of time on your hands, and a lot of retirees go back to work part-time just to have something to because the boredom of retirement drives them nuts. If you’re active by nature you might want to consider working a few years past your target date of retiring.
Delay Taking Social Security
Social Security benefits increase until age 70. So, delaying taking Social Security as long as you can, or at least until 70, will get you more Social Security income when you do eventually take it. For couples, the higher earning spouse should delay benefits longer because they’ll eventually get more when they do take them. Delaying Social Security benefits to age 70, instead of 62, increases monthly benefits by 77%. That’s a big difference in peace of mind, long-term financial security and few understand it. For more information, see Forbes.
But, you’re capped on how much you can contribute or how much return you can make with most traditional low-risk investments. And while there may be caps on what you can save in your 401(k), 403(b), Roth IRA or Roth 401(k), there are no caps on other investments, such as
So, while there may be caps on what you can save in your 401(k), 403(b), Roth IRA or Roth 401(k), there are no caps on what you can invest in:
Stocks
- Robinhood
- Acorn
- Webull
- Stash
Crowdfunded start-ups (unlimited for accredited investors)
- Wefunder
- Start Engine
- Seed Invest
- Kickstarter
Crypto
The timing for crypto could never be better. Many Wall Street heavyweights have applied for a Bitcoin spot ETF, which is sure to get approved considering who the applicants are and what they manage. Due to institutional demands, some of the largest Wall Street firms are pushing hard to offer Bitcoin exposure to their customers.
Just as a gold ETF drew trillions of investment dollars into gold, a Bitcoin ETF will draw trillions of dollars into the crypto space benefiting many other cryptocurrencies as well as Bitcoin.
BlackRock ($8.59 Trillion AUM), the world’s largest asset manager, has applied along with Fidelity ($4.3 Trillion AUM), and Vanguard ($7.7 Trillion AUM), the world’s largest mutual fund provider, owns roughly $600 Million in Bitcoin mining stocks. Now that the longest bear period in Bitcoin history has ended after 490 days, and a halving (scheduled supply reduction) happening less than a year from now, the crypto market has finally turning bullish with a groundswell of institutional support from Wall Street.
Once the next Bitcoin bull run happens over the next 12 - 24 months, something called alt season will occur. Alt season is when Bitcoin investors take profits and invest them in other alternative cryptocurrencies, such as Etherium or a smaller-cap coin like Blockchain Bets. According to traditional investment professionals, cryptocurrency represents a much larger risk and return profile. Some very smart people believe crypto is going to $0, others do not. We at Bee are passionate crypto believers and have used the underlying technology, blockchain, in our mortgage app and are in process of patenting it.
When getting a mortgage with Bee Mortgage, you can use crypto as a qualifying asset to buy a home with. Bee is one of the few mortgage lenders allowing this and reflects the company’s mission to be as tech-forward as possible, serving the next generation of home buyers.
Blockchain technology is revolutionary and each cryptocurrency has a unique function and utility providing value to the holder, whether it be profits, the ability to process data in a trusted manner without an intermediary, or as a store of value or “digital gold” as Bitcoin has been called by Larry Fink the CEO of BlackRock.
Some very smart people think cryptocurrency is worthless, other smart people do not. We are not one of those who think it’s worthless. However, we believe it’s a new and emerging asset class backed by the next generation Web3 network that processes data in a trusted manner globally. Bee Mortgage has been featured in the national and local news media for its innovative mortgage app powered by this next generation technology.
Bitcoin $BTC
Price: $30,000 July 17, 2023
Buy Bitcoin on Coinbase or Binance US
Called digital gold and inflation hedge by Wall Street leaders, many investors and analysts believe Bitcoin can easily 3x in the next cycle. Binance, the largest exchange by volume, just completed the Bitcoin Lightning Network integration, which is a layer 2 upgrade speeding up transactions and allowing for scaling.
Etherium $ETH
Price: $1,900 July 17, 2023
Buy Etherium on Coinbase or Binance US
The backbone of the decentralized economy powering many other Web3 projects, or alt coins (alternative coins) dApps, or decentralized applications. Bee Mortgage’s mobile app runs on one of these dApps and is used to process borrower data without loan officer or loan processor dependencies. Some analysts put a price target of $5,000 on Etherium.
Altcoins
Blockchain Bets $BCB
Price: $0.017 July 17, 2023
Buy Blockchain Bets on Uniswap
An altcoin that pays 100% casino profits to stakers (over $400,000 paid out so far since launch about 6 months ago), and is led by a great team, vibrant community of supporters, and has timed their product (a no-KYC, Web3 crypto casino in a fast emerging space called Gamble-fi) really well, right before the Bitcoin bull run. Over the past 30 days, Blockchain bets has gained 234% ($15,000,000 market cap) and many believe it could reach a market cap of $1 Billion after Bitcoin reaches a new all time high over the next 12 - 24 months. Here's a great write up by a university professor about Blockchain Bets.
Gold, silver, or precious metals
Art
- Yieldstreet
- Masterworks
Uncle Sam’s Retirement Savings Credit
A tax credit up to 50% of your retirement plan contribution is available for lower-or middle-income earners. For married couples with a adjusted gross income of below $73,000 (for 2023, $68,000 for 2022), that file joint tax returns, you might be eligible for a tax credit so long as you contribute to a qualified retirement plan.
Retire In The Right State
Everyone knows there are some states known for retirement, such as Florida, Arizona, or Tennessee. But have you ever wondered why that is? Could it all be the climate or cost of living? Well, if’s a combination of factors, but one thing they all have in common is no state income tax, along with not taxing Social Security.
The following states have no state income tax:
- Alaska
- Florida
- New Hampshire (no earned income tax, but does tax dividends & interest)
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Washington
- Wyoming
We’ve reviewed in depth the benefits of living, starting a business, having a career, and retiring in Florida. Many retirees find themselves loving the low cost of living, warm coastal climate, and leisure activities in places such as The Villages, Daytona Beach, and Ponte Vedra Beach. In addition to no state income tax, Florida doesn’t tax retirement benefits and there’s no estate or inheritance taxes which allows retirees to keep more of their hard-earned money for themselves and loved ones. As a result Florida has many vibrant and very active senior communities with about 45% of the population over 50 years of age.
The Bottom Line
The best way to save for retirement is to automate the savings into your retirement accounts. By having the money automatically come out of your paycheck you won’t be tempted to spend it. Additionally, there are many tax-savings retirement opportunities to take advantage of, and while many have caps to what you can contribute, other alternative investments, such as those above, do not. So, invest wisely, manage risk, and plan ahead to secure your financial future!
Due to the risk of losing some or all your money, you should always seek the advice of a licensed financial advisor and carefully consider each option. No one investment plan or strategy is right for everyone. Bee Mortgage makes no investment advice.
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- Lowering the interest rate and monthly payment.
- Paying the home off faster with a lower interest rate.
- Consolidating debt.
If you are wanting to refinance mortgage in Ponte Vedra, we can help.
To see if you qualify for a streamline refinance, contact Bee at 855-626-1999 or apply here today!
If you’re ready to make the leap into homeownership, contact us today! Our dedicated loan experts will walk you through every step of the way ensuring you get a low rate and close quickly!
If you’re looking for a streamline refinance to lower the rate and payment, apply here today or call 855-626-1999 and speak with one of our expert loan officers in your area!
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Bee is a leading Florida mortgage broker with over 10 Florida local offices that’s been featured heavily in the local and national news for its instant pre-approvals, low rates, fast closings, and new mobile technology. For more news and resources, click here.