If you've opted out of Social Security — or you're about to — there's a question hanging over your paycheck. Most of us never get a real answer. So let me tell you what I've been doing for four years.
When you file Form 4361, something nobody really explains happens to your paycheck. That 15% the government was taking — the employer and employee FICA — it just lands in your pocket. Month after month.
On top of that, most of us get a lump sum refund for every month of FICA paid since we were licensed. Twelve, maybe eighteen months of back payments all at once. And because housing allowance doesn't count toward EITC, our tax returns tend to be bigger than we'd expect too.
So you suddenly have money. Not a ton — we're still in ministry — but more than you used to. And nobody tells you what to do with it.
I want to tell you what I do with it. And why I think most of us are leaving something valuable on the table.
Say you want a $30,000 truck. There are three ways you can pay for it. Every adult has thought about this. But almost nobody does the math on what each path actually costs.
You write a check. No interest, no payments, no debt. Feels clean. Feels responsible. Everyone applauds.
Put a little down, borrow the rest from the dealer or a bank. You get to keep your cash. You drive off the lot.
You borrow from yourself. Buy the truck outright. Pay yourself back on a schedule that suits you. The money you borrowed keeps growing like you never touched it.
Here's the thing most people miss: there is no option where "nothing" happens.
If you pay cash, you lose what that money could have earned — sometimes for decades. That's a real cost. It just doesn't show up on a receipt.
If you finance, you pay interest. That's an obvious cost.
If you be the bank — the interest stays with you. You are the one profiting from your purchase.
"You finance everything you purchase. You either pay interest with a loan, or you lose interest you could have earned by paying cash. Either way, there's a cost."
Here's something I didn't know until I started paying attention: real estate investors don't pay cash for properties. Business owners don't fund startups from savings. Wealthy families don't liquidate to buy things.
They borrow. Every time. On purpose.
Not because they have to. Because leverage is the tool. Your money does one job when it sits in a bank. It does two jobs when it stays put and also backs a loan that's out buying something.
Banks have been doing this for 300 years. It's why they build the tallest buildings in every city. They take your deposit, pay you a tiny interest rate, then loan your money out at a higher one. They make the spread. They get rich on your money.
What if you could do that — for yourself?
That's what this is. You become the bank. You fund a policy on your life. You borrow from it. You pay yourself back. You keep the spread.
That's the part that's hard to wrap your head around at first. You are the asset. Your life has economic value — that's why insurance exists in the first place. But most people only see life insurance as something that pays out when you die. A properly structured policy lets you use that value while you're still living. You leverage yourself.
Most people who set up one of these policies have to sacrifice to fund it. Cut their budget. Find an extra few hundred a month.
We don't have to do that. The money is already there.
We don't make a lot of money. I know that. Saving a flat 15% into a Roth isn't going to build the kind of retirement most people imagine. But we're also not in a standard career. And that's where this gets interesting.
Think about this honestly. How many times has a ministry buddy told you about a deal — a rental property, a side business, a friend's startup, an investment he's excited about?
How many times did you wish you could say yes?
Any wealth I have is locked up in a 401k, my home, or an emergency fund I can't touch without guilt. Or honestly? I don't even have it. The opportunity passes. Someone else takes it. You tell yourself the next one will come around.
Policy loan in a few days. No credit check. No explaining why you need it. Your cash value keeps compounding while the money goes out to work on the deal.
Here's the part I have to say honestly. Most of us aren't even investing the extra 15%. We save 10-15% in a Roth like we're supposed to, and the rest of that FICA money quietly gets absorbed into our standard of living. Better groceries. A nicer truck payment. Eating out more. Not lush — just catching up to where our peers already are. And I don't judge that, because I've done it too. But that money could be building something.
This is the part that changed how I think about money. Real entrepreneurs don't fund their projects with cash. They use loans. They use other people's money. They keep their own capital working and borrow from it when an opportunity shows up.
When you start doing that — even on small things — you start thinking differently. You start seeing deals. You start running small numbers on your phone while you're at lunch. You start learning the language of investing, not because you decided to, but because now you have the tool to actually participate.
And while you're learning, the policy keeps compounding. Your death benefit keeps growing. Your family stays protected. If something happens to you at 35, none of it was wasted — it all goes to them, at many times what you paid in. You'd have to earn an impossible return in the market to match that kind of protection.
I want to say something most guys in our world don't talk about openly. The oldest person I know in this specific ministry job is 44. Forty-four.
That means there's a gap coming for most of us. Somewhere between 40 and 45, this particular job ends. What then?
Our skills don't transfer easily. We've spent a decade raising funds, building relationships, teaching, counseling — valuable work, but not the kind that lands you a six-figure offer in the marketplace without retraining.
Here's what I think about that.
You have ten to twenty years between when you start and when this probably ends. Long enough to do something more than just survive. Long enough to build something.
What if you used those years to quietly build two things at once?
This is the vision. Not that the policy makes you wealthy. It doesn't, not directly. But it gives you the liquidity to say yes to opportunities for fifteen years. It gives you a place to practice thinking about money differently. It gives your family a death benefit that covers them through every wild idea you try along the way.
And when the ministry chapter closes — you've already been writing the next one.
I'm not a closer. I don't want to push you into anything. But if this resonated — if you're curious what this looks like in practice after four years, with a real policy and real loans — shoot me a text.
I'll send you what I have. My policy, my loans, what I've paid in, what's grown. You can poke at it. Ask questions. Decide if it's something you want to learn more about.
This page is a conversation, not financial advice. Dividends aren't guaranteed, whole life insurance has costs, and IBC isn't for everyone. But for a minister with a long runway and no Social Security, it's worth a real look.