Knowing how a personal banking system works and actually starting one are two different things. The last chapter of my book, Money in Motion, is a 90-day plan that takes you from where you are now to a funded policy you're borrowing through. It's built for someone who wants to move fast, but you don't have to. It works at a slower pace too. What matters is that you start.
Days 1 to 30: get your cash flow right
Don't buy a policy this month. Everything rests on moving your money efficiently, and a policy bolted onto leaky cash flow is a weak start. Use these thirty days to:
Track every dollar for thirty days, so you can see exactly what comes in and what goes out.
Set up your Dynamic Banking flow: a checking account plus a line of credit your paychecks get deposited onto.
Find your wealth building blocks. Those are the recurring expenses and big purchases you'll later route through the policy instead of paying for them the usual way.
Confirm you have a real emergency reserve.
Decide, from your own numbers, how much you could put in each month without straining.
Days 31 to 60: design and apply
This is where most of the money is won or lost, because a great idea with a bad design still fails. First, pick the product. Whole life gives you guarantees and a steady dividend. Indexed universal life (IUL) offers more upside and flexibility, with more to watch. Plenty of people own both, and I'm one of them.
Then get several illustrations. An illustration is the carrier's year-by-year projection of the policy, and it's a projection, not a promise. Look for designs built for high early cash value: a small base premium, a large share of paid-up additions (extra premium that buys small pieces of paid-up insurance and builds cash value fast), and usually a term rider blended in. A design that's almost all base premium is rarely right. If an agent says you're the exception, get a second and third opinion. For whole life, use a strong mutual company with a long, unbroken dividend record. For IUL, look for a major carrier with strong financial ratings and a product that can be built with very low expenses.
Then apply, and lock in your insurability while you're healthy.
Days 61 to 90: fund it and start banking
Fund the policy at the illustrated level, paying the base premium and the paid-up additions on time.
Set up how you'll borrow: the policy's own loan provision, plus an outside line of credit secured by the cash value if it fits. A policy loan reduces your cash value and death benefit while it's outstanding.
Run your first real cycle: finance something you were going to buy anyway, then pay yourself back.
If you own a business, set aside a business line of credit too.
Put an annual review on the calendar.
Questions to ask any agent
Who designs your policy is the biggest decision in the whole plan. Ask how the policy is built and what the split is between base premium and paid-up additions. Ask whether it's engineered for high early cash value and low expenses. Ask to see the guaranteed column next to the projected one. Ask whether the carrier is a mutual company with a long dividend record. And ask whether the agent owns a policy like this. A good agent will welcome every one of those questions.
If you don't own a home
Nothing here requires home equity. The only piece that needs an asset is the line of credit. Until you have one, a credit card works if you run your predictable expenses through it and pay it in full every month, which gives you the same timing advantage without interest. A personal line of credit works too. Within a few years, the policy's cash value becomes the asset you borrow against.
The full chapter, along with the fifteen before it, is in Money in Motion, in paperback, on Kindle, or as a free digital copy.
You can start phase one this week. Pick a notebook or a spreadsheet and log every dollar that comes in and goes out for the next thirty days.