Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Financial Planning Red Flag #1 -- lots of gushing "this'll change your life!" reviews Financial Planning Red Flag #2 -- a highly complex plan sold by the concept of "fighting The Man" and/or "helping the little guy" Financial Planning Red Flag #3 -- hidden costs and overly rosy projections OK, I'll be brief -- I'm the CEO of a company; I've had years of experience investing and managing finances. There is nothing fundamentally untrue about the "infinite banking" or "becoming your own banker" concept, but it's unnecessarily expensive and burdensome when you can accomplish the same thing with a little self-discipline. The idea here is that you buy a complicated version of whole life insurance (that most people will not understand in terms of the risk/cost/reward/headache factor) and that once you've built up value in this policy (by paying into it for x years), you can then borrow against its value -- essentially from yourself -- and then pay your own account interest instead of borrowing from a bank or credit union for larger purchases. The plus to this system is that your policy continues to accrue dividends on the amount you've borrowed as well as what you've left in the policy. They claim this is tax free -- in a limited sense it is, but only if you have the knowledge and finesse to meet all the requirements of the system. I highly question whether the vast majority of people who've bought into this scheme really understand if they're getting the benefits they think they are. What they don't tell you is that the easiest way to "become your own banker" is to forego an expensive whole life policy (which requires a fairly large lump sum up front, by the way), and simply make sure you take a reasonable amount of money (whatever you might otherwise pay into a policy under a plan like this) and park it in laddered CDs and/or a mix of index funds, including a decent mix of safer bonds. Then, when you want to buy a car, boat, whatever, you take money out of this account to do it and, using an amortization calculator like those on bankrate.com and a myriad other sites, calculate what your monthly payment would be on the item had you financed through a bank, credit card, etc. and "pay yourself" back this amount every month via direct deposit from your employer (which also easily enforces self-discipline). Ta da! You've just "become your own banker" In essence, all this plan is is a complicated and expensive way to enforce saving for your future purchases. Don't let people like this author (or "Rich Dad" and his ilk) use fear of the big, bad financial / tax system to scare you into making an investment you don't understand. Pay down your debt and save for the future is all anyone needs to do. But then that wouldn't make a very long book nor a snappy title. Best of luck to you!