Welcome to My New Chapter — And a First Lesson in the Language of Money
Happy New Year! I’m starting this next chapter with something I’m genuinely excited about: helping people like you build financial plans that actually make sense.
If you’re new here, a quick introduction. After five years of managing my own investments and falling in love with what I call the language of money, I’ve reinvented my career. I’m now a licensed LLQP life insurance representative, working with Imperium Capital Strategy, where I help people manage life insurance products as part of a bigger financial picture.
Here’s the thing about the language of money: most of us were never taught to speak it. Nobody sits us down and explains how our money actually works, so we default to guessing, avoiding, or handing it off to someone else and hoping for the best. I don’t think that’s good enough — not for me, and not for you. This newsletter is where I’ll be sharing what I’m learning and using in my own financial life, in plain language, with zero judgment about where you’re starting from.
Let’s get into our first topic.
Universal Life Policies: The Piece Nobody Explains Well
In my own financial plan — and in the Connecting the Dots program I follow — a Universal Life (UL) policy plays the role of a retirement fund, not just an insurance policy.
Here’s how it works, in plain terms:
A Universal Life policy is a type of permanent life insurance that builds cash value over time. Every month, part of your premium goes toward the insurance coverage, and part of it grows inside the policy — similar in spirit to how a TFSA shelters your investment growth from tax. As long as you don’t withdraw that cash value, it grows tax-deferred, meaning you don’t owe income tax on the growth.
The strategy I follow — and the one many financial professionals recommend — is to never withdraw directly from the cash value. Instead, when the money is needed, you take a policy loan against it. The full balance keeps growing, untouched, tax-deferred, in the background.
It can sound almost too good to be true. But this isn’t a new idea — it’s one insurance companies have offered for well over a century. My own UL policy is with Equitable Life, a Canadian mutual company founded in 1886. Products like this have survived market crashes, wars, and generations of economic change because the fundamentals work.
The bigger truth I want you to walk away with: insurance products, used correctly, are one of the most underrated tools for managing money you’ve worked hard to earn.
This is general educational information based on my own experience and financial approach — not personalized advice. Everyone’s situation is different, so if something here resonates, let’s talk about whether it makes sense for you specifically.
— Maria
Let’s Start the Conversation
Have questions about how this could apply to your own plan? I’d love to hear from you.
Maria Lind
647.999.0470
phoenixfinancial365@gmail.com
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