One of my favorite scenes in The Dark Knight is when Coleman Reese (a lawyer) finds out Bruce Wayne is Batman.
He approaches Lucious Fox to try and blackmail him for his silence:
***
Lucius Fox: Let me get this straight, you think that your client, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante, who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to blackmail this person?
… Good luck.
***
This reminds me of the Dave Ramsey and Boglehead fanboys who believe they can beat the life insurance company at its own game by buying term life insurance and investing the difference instead of just buying whole life insurance.
They believe whole life is a hopelessly complex, expensive, insurance product and their plan is…
… to cut out the middleman and take on all that expense themselves by creating their own (infinitely more) complex “self-insurance” system at a fraction of the cost (somehow) even though they’re not operating an insurance and money management business at scale… presumably also managing their money at least as well and with at least as much technical skill as the insurer?
Good luck.
Meanwhile, back in reality, most smart folks simply buy whole life insurance and then invest whatever money they can afford to lose into some higher risk asset (e.g. stocks, real estate, etc.) with the hope they will add a tidy extra sum for the future.
And, in some cases, they strike it big.
In other cases, they fall back on the insurance policy.
OK, enough banter.
If you want for-real financial tips that will actually help you do the right things with your money, go sign up for my email list, now.