Wealthy
Life
Starter Kit
Everything they never taught us about money — and exactly what to do about it today.
Before we go any further, let me tell you the truth.
I was taught one thing about money growing up: work hard, save in a bank account, and one day — when you had worn yourself completely out — you could retire on Social Security.
That was the lie.
I spent 25 years in Fortune 500 boardrooms — DIRECTV, Verizon, Charter, Frontier — building CRM systems still in use today, driving hundreds of millions in revenue, winning JD Power six out of seven years. I sat across from executives whose retirement plans looked nothing like the ones HR was selling to the rest of us.
They had three buckets. We were sold one.
Along the way I sold purses and jewelry as side hustles. I worked Christmas Day on boardroom calls. I gave up half my retirement in a divorce after 23 years of marriage. One time the IRS froze my bank account because I trusted someone else to handle my finances.
And here's the hard truth — they didn't know more than me. I just thought they did.
Two days before I was laid off, I passed my life insurance exam. Two days. I don't call that coincidence. I call that God closing one door and opening the one I was supposed to walk through all along.
That door wasn't just for me.
The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.
— Proverbs 10:22
This kit is what I wish someone had handed me 25 years ago. Seven truths. Seven actions. One checklist that shows you exactly where your family is exposed right now. And one free check-up with me if you want to talk through any of it.
You do not need to be rich to start. You need to start to get wealthy.
Read it. Do one thing today. That's all I ask. The woman you are becoming is built one wealthy decision at a time.
Your savings account
is robbing you.
The bank doesn't keep your money safe. The bank keeps your money still — while inflation eats it from underneath.
Here's the math nobody walked you through. The average traditional bank pays around 0.45% APY on a standard savings account. Meanwhile, high-yield savings and money market accounts are paying around 4–5% APY right now. Same money. Same effort on your part. Same FDIC protection.
The bank profits from your inaction. Let me show you what that looks like.
That's 11x more — for nothing more than choosing the right account.
You do not need $5,000 to start. This is the bucket your emergency fund lives in — and you should be working toward 3 to 6 months of expenses saved here. But you start where you are. $25 a paycheck. $50 a paycheck. Set it on autopilot. Name the account Freedom Fund. Watch it grow.
Automate before you can spend it.
Research from University College London shows it takes an average of 66 days — not 21 — to form a lasting habit. Two months of automatic transfers and you'll stop noticing the money was ever gone.
That's identity work. You stop being someone who hopes to save and become someone who saves.
— Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology
Before this document closes — open the account.
- Go to Bankrate.com and search "best high yield savings accounts"
- Pick one of the top-rated: Marcus, Ally, Discover, SoFi, or Wealthfront
- Open it online — 10 minutes, no branch needed
- Set up an automatic transfer of $25 minimum per paycheck
- Rename the account in your banking app: FREEDOM FUND
- Don't touch it for 90 days. Watch what happens.
Your job owns your
life insurance. Not you.
If you lost your job tomorrow, your life insurance would be gone with it. You don't own it. You rent it.
Most employer policies cover 1 to 2 times your annual salary. Sounds reasonable until you do the math: a $90,000 salary becomes $90,000–$180,000 of coverage. For a family with a mortgage, kids in school, and 25 years of income left to replace — that's not protection. That's a gesture.
And here's what nobody mentions on benefits enrollment day:
- When you leave the job — voluntarily or not — the policy ends.
- If you're diagnosed with something serious while still employed, then lose the job, you may be uninsurable when you try to buy private coverage.
- Your family's protection is contingent on a corporation that owes them nothing.
for Black Americans.
$50,000 for a family. For a generation. For everything you've built. That isn't a gap. That's a design — and we're going to fix it.
Own the protection. Stop renting it.
Identity-based habits are the most powerful kind. When you see yourself as someone who OWNS her financial protection — not someone whose employer provides it — every decision starts to align with that identity.
Own life insurance that travels with you. Through every job. Every layoff. Every season. When you own it — nobody can take it.
— James Clear, Atomic Habits
Two paths. Both protect your family. Pick the one that fits your life.
Affordable monthly cost. Fixed coverage for a set number of years. Travels with you — not your employer. For most healthy adults under 45, $500K of term runs ~$25–$50/month.
Best for: families who need maximum coverage at the lowest cost right now.
Protects your family and builds tax-advantaged wealth while you're alive. Has a floor — your money cannot go to zero in a market crash.
Best for: women who want life insurance that also works as a wealth-building tool.
See your rate AND build your estate plan — in one move.
Scan the code with your phone. About 5 minutes. No medical exam for most policies. You'll see real numbers for your age and health right now — and every eligible policy includes a free will, living trust, power of attorney, and healthcare directive at no extra cost.
agents.ethoslife.com/invite/48bcaPrefer to talk it through first? Book the free 15-minute check-up — I'll personally walk you through your options and find the right path for your family.
*Free estate planning tools (will, trust, POA, healthcare directive) included with eligible Ethos policies. Currently available in all states except AK, LA, SD, and WA. Coverage subject to underwriting approval.
Let's run your numbers together.
- Find your current life insurance amount on your benefits portal
- Multiply your salary by 10 — that's your family's minimum need
- Book the free 15-minute check-up — I'll personally run your IUL projection and show you what protection AND wealth look like side by side
Trusts are not
just for rich people.
Who told you trusts were only for wealthy people? And what has that lie cost your family?
A trust is a legal structure that holds and directs your assets — your home, your savings, your life insurance death benefit, your business — according to your instructions, without your family having to go through probate court.
A will tells people what you want after you're gone. A trust makes sure they actually get it — without a judge deciding, without court fees eating what you built, without your family waiting months or years while bills don't stop.
On $300K — up to $24,000 gone before your family sees a dollar.
Without a trust:
- Your family goes through probate — public, slow, expensive
- The state decides who gets what if there's no will
- Minor children can end up with court-appointed guardians instead of the people you'd have chosen
- Real estate gets tied up for 6–24 months while bills keep coming
With a properly set up trust, your family gets: privacy (trusts are not public record), speed (days or weeks, not months), control (you decide who gets what and when), and protection (often shielded from creditors and lawsuits).
The wealthy don't use trusts because they are rich. They use trusts to stay that way — generation after generation.
Write the date. Not the intention.
Research from Dr. Gail Matthews at Dominican University shows that writing down a specific plan — not just an intention — increases follow-through by 91%.
Don't think "I should get a trust." Write down: "By [specific date], I will complete step one below." That one sentence changes everything.
— Dr. Gail Matthews, Dominican University
Full transparency: I'm a licensed life insurance agent, not an estate attorney. I cannot draft your trust. But here's what most agents will never tell you — there's a way to get a legally valid will, living trust, power of attorney, and healthcare directive at no extra cost.
Solve it in one step — back at Truth Two.
When you secure term life coverage through the Ethos QR code in Truth Two, every eligible policy includes free access to a state-specific will, living trust, power of attorney, and healthcare directive — created online through guided questionnaires that meet your state's legal standards.
One scan. Protection for your family. And the estate plan you've been putting off. That's the move.
If Ethos isn't a fit for you — your health, age, or your state isn't covered by the free estate planning benefit (AK, LA, SD, WA) — here are clean alternatives that won't require a $5,000 retainer:
You don't need to be rich to need a trust. You need to have anyone who depends on you to need a trust.
The tool wealthy families
have used for a century.
They've just never told us.
The Rockefellers used it for six generations. The wealthiest families in America have quietly built and transferred wealth through it since the early 1900s. It is one of the most powerful financial tools the IRS still allows — and almost no one in our communities was ever shown how it works.
It's called permanent life insurance — specifically, properly structured cash-value policies like Indexed Universal Life (IUL) and Whole Life. 90% of Fortune 500 companies use it to protect and grow wealth for their top executives. That was never an accident.
They had three buckets.
We were sold one.
The Wealth4Us philosophy — three moves, in order:
Protect what you have
Term insurance does this affordably. Get the floor in place first.
Accumulate in a protected environment
Permanent insurance does this — where the market can't touch the principal and the IRS treats the growth differently.
Leave a legacy
The death benefit transfers wealth to your family — generally income-tax-free.
What a properly structured policy can do:
Decide as the woman you're becoming.
Neuroscience shows that every financial decision aligned with your future self strengthens the neural pathway toward that identity.
You're not just opening a policy. You are becoming the woman who protects her family — and builds the wealth that outlives her.
— Behavioral neuroscience research, multiple studies
One honest word: Permanent insurance is not for everyone. It only works when it is structured and funded properly, and held long-term. A poorly structured or under-funded policy can lapse and create tax problems. This is why structure matters more than the product itself — and why the agent across the table matters as much as the carrier.
The income
you can't outlive.
You can save your whole life and still run out of money. That's the part nobody told you either.
Here's what most retirement plans miss. You've been taught to accumulate a number — a 401(k) balance, a savings target, a "magic number" you're chasing. Then what? You retire. The paychecks stop. Suddenly you're rationing a pile of money against an unknown lifespan. That's not a retirement plan. That's a budget for dying on time.
The wealthy don't plan that way. They build their retirement around three buckets — and the third one is the one our communities were never shown.
The "I can sleep at night" money. 3–6 months of expenses. Boring on purpose.
Money that builds while you work. Tax-advantaged. Protected from the market floor.
A paycheck you cannot outlive. This is the bucket they never told us about.
So what's an annuity, really?
In plain English: an annuity is a contract with an insurance company that turns a lump sum of money into a guaranteed paycheck for the rest of your life. You put money in. They send you a check every month — for as long as you live. Even if you live to 105. Even if the market crashes. Even if your other accounts run dry.
It's the closest thing in the financial world to a private pension — the kind our grandparents might have had through a union or a company. Pensions are mostly gone now. Annuities are how the wealthy quietly replaced them.
The fix isn't saving harder. It's structuring smarter.
What a properly structured annuity can do:
About that old 401k from a job you don't even like anymore.
You worked there. You contributed. You left. And the money you sweated for is still sitting there — riding every market wave, exposed to every headline, completely out of your hands.
Look at what just one twelve-month window did to retirement accounts across America:
Sources: CNBC reporting on Morningstar Direct data, March 2026 · Macrobond Financial, March 2026.
If you were 5 years from retirement on April 1st, you woke up on April 9th and discovered nearly 20 cents of every dollar you'd worked decades to save was gone. Some of it came back. Some of it didn't — especially for the people who panicked and sold at the bottom.
Here's the part most agents won't tell you: that old 401k or IRA from a previous employer? You can roll it into a properly structured annuity with a protected floor — and the IRS treats it as a tax-free rollover, not a taxable distribution. Your principal becomes shielded from the next market crash. Your future income becomes guaranteed. And the money finally comes home to you.
Leaving your old retirement account at a former employer is like leaving your annuity with an ex-boyfriend.
You really think he's going to act in your best interest?
A rollover into a properly structured annuity is one of the cleanest ways to bring that money home, protect it from market swings, and turn it into guaranteed income you cannot outlive. That's the third bucket. That's the move most of us were never shown.
Build the floor before you build the ceiling.
Behavioral finance research from Morningstar's David Blanchett shows that retirees with guaranteed lifetime income report significantly higher happiness and lower anxiety than those with the same total assets but no income floor.
It's not the size of the pile. It's whether the check shows up next month. Build the floor — then everything else you save sits on top of certainty.
— Blanchett & Finke, Morningstar, 2023
One honest word: Annuities are a tool — not a religion. Not every annuity is good, and not every situation calls for one. Surrender charges, fees, and contract terms vary wildly between products and carriers. This is exactly the kind of decision that should never be made from a document. The right annuity in the right amount at the right time can transform your retirement. The wrong one can lock you up. That's why this conversation belongs on a call, not on a page.
Four questions to bring to our call.
- Do I have old retirement money — 401k, IRA, annuity — still sitting at a former employer? (If yes, that's the first conversation.)
- When do I want guaranteed income to start? 5 years? 10 years? At retirement?
- How much monthly income would let me sleep at night? $2K? $5K? $10K?
- Book the free 15-minute check-up — I'll show you what your income floor could look like and walk you through the rollover process if it makes sense.
Live in your wealth
while you build it.
Most plans tell you to wait. Wait until retirement. Wait until you're 65. Wait until you're gone. Wealthy families don't wait.
Here's the part of the conversation nobody has with us. The Rockefeller-style wealth tool we touched on in Truth Four — properly structured cash-value life insurance like IUL and whole life — doesn't just protect your family when you're gone. It builds money you can actually use while you're alive.
That's the part that changes everything. You stop saving for someday and start living wealthy today.
Build it for them.
Live in it for you.
What "living wealth" actually means.
When a permanent cash-value policy is structured correctly, the money inside it isn't locked away waiting for your funeral. You can access it. Tax-advantaged. Without an application. Without explaining yourself to a banker. Without touching your 401k or paying early-withdrawal penalties.
It works like a private line of credit you built quietly, on your own terms, that grows whether you use it or not. That's how generational families have moved money for over 100 years — they're the bank.
Fund the LLC, the inventory, the first hire — without bank approval, without a credit pull.
Down payment for a rental or duplex, accessed from your own policy on your timeline.
Tuition without student loans — and without crushing your retirement to do it.
Medical bill, layoff, family crisis. Access in days, not weeks. No questions asked.
Supplement your 401k with income that doesn't push you into a higher tax bracket.
Your money keeps growing while you use it. Pay yourself back, on your terms.
This is what was hidden from us. Not because the tool is exotic — it's been around for a century. But because someone selling you a 401k and a savings account doesn't get paid when you build private wealth that you control.
Wealth isn't what you leave behind. Wealth is what you live in while you build the legacy.
Build assets that pay you twice.
The wealthiest families don't just own assets — they own assets that do double duty. A properly structured policy protects your family if you're gone AND funds your life while you're here. One dollar. Two jobs.
That's the difference between saving for wealth and living in it. Stop choosing between protection and access. Build the tool that does both.
— The Infinite Banking Concept · R. Nelson Nash, 2000
One honest word: Living wealth through cash-value policies only works when the policy is structured for cash access — most agents don't know how to do this. A standard IUL or whole life policy is built to maximize death benefit and commission, not living benefits. The structure matters more than the product. That's the entire conversation.
Three questions to bring to your check-up.
- What would I do with $50K of accessible capital in the next 3 years? Business? Property? Education? Emergency cushion?
- Where is my money sitting right now that isn't doing double duty? (Old 401k, savings sitting at 0.45%, equity you're not using?)
- Book the free 15-minute check-up — I'll show you what a properly structured policy could look like for your family AND your future.
The 14-Question
Family Protection Checklist.
Answer honestly. Each "no" is a gap — and a gap is an action item, not a verdict.
Review before something goes wrong.
Wealthy people review their finances before something goes wrong — not after. Put a recurring reminder in your phone every 90 days: WEALTH CHECK.
Pull this checklist out. Count how many NO answers changed to YES. That is how you measure becoming.
Now it's time
to take action.
The woman you are becoming is built one wealthy decision at a time.
You have the information. You have the checklist. What you need now is 15 minutes — and a person on the other side of the table who will tell you the truth.
Book your free 15-minute check-up.
Honest answers. No pitch. Just your math, your gaps, and your next move.
Book My Check-Up— or —
DM the word WEALTH to @Wealth4Us on Instagram
"The blessing of the Lord brings wealth,
without painful toil for it."
— Proverbs 10:22
Collette Alves
Licensed Life Insurance Agent · NPN 20752514
@Wealth4Us · wealth4us.org