Damion Lupo: The Qualified Retirement Plan (QRP)

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The growing retirement continues to be a major focus here at PeakProsperity.com.

Our recent podcast with Ted Siedle exposed the shocking insolvency of many pension funds. And on the private retirement account side, we’ve written numerous articles revealing the failure to save of tens of millions of Baby Boomers.

In today’s podcast, Chris interviews Damion Lupo who shines light on a potential option that may add useful value to folks planning for, or already in, retirement: the Qualified Retirement Plan, or “QRP”.

The QRP is a vehicle that enables you to have direct control over your retirement savings, vs having to rely on a custodian – who usually drastically limits your options while taking an annual fee. Among other benefits, it enables you to directly purchase ‘alternative’ assets such as precious metals, real estate, businesses and private equity with your retirement funds:

Right now, there's $25 trillion, with a "T", 25 trillion dollars' worth of assets inside retirement plans, and most of that's in a very limited range of mutual funds.

For most people, their 401K or IRA, and is an afterthought. They simply hope it goes up over time and hope Wall Street didn’t rape and pillage them, which it does. They have very little real control over these funds.

The data shows that when many of these folks hit retirement age they don’t have a whole lot of money there.

QRP stands for “Qualified Retirement Plan”. And really, it’s a type of 401K that gives you control of your money.

It’s a way for you to control some or all of your assets in a retirement actually and do things with your money that are really more interesting, I think, like real estate or physical gold or private equity or business, land in Belize or Panama. It gives you a much broader range of options that start to put you in the driver’s seat so that you’re not subject to the corruption and manipulation of the big money-management institutions.

The reason you haven’t heard of it is because Wall Street doesn’t make any money on this type of account. They don’t control your assets; you do. That’s really good for you, but it’s very bad for them, so they’re never going to promote it.


Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Damion Lupo (46m:38s).

Other Ways To Listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | YouTube | Download |

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/damion-lupo-the-qualified-retirement-plan-qrp/

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Don’t mean to be flippant but “failure to save” leaves me uncomfortable. I’m sure that there are plenty of boomers that simply couldn’t save; such are our times…
 
Maybe reflects PP’s readership? Including me…

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I am going to challenge the saving mantra in my next piece. I’m frugal, but there are people who are extremely frugal to the point that we’re a separate species.
Ever hear the stories of, say, the library janitor or humble school teacher that died and left millions behind?
In every single case those people lived extremely frugal lifestyles. So much of our current culture asks or even demands that we spend gobs and gobs of money on things that, quite often, aren’t really necessary.
The list is long.
I think it’s worth taking a longer tour through that universe to challenge myself to see if I have been as careful as I can be, or should be, with my finances.
I will say that I often hear from people who profess to being “broke” who are driving newer and vastly more expensive cars than I’ve ever bought, live in bigger, nicer houses, with newer smart phones, and with the latest clothes. I usually just nod but think to myself “unh huh…I bet you would be less broke if you weren’t such a avid consumer.”
Saving is a practice, not a luxury. I’ve saved at every single paycheck/income level of my entire life, except when I was a teen aged idiot and had my first few paychecks. Those evaporated in a puff of smoke, so to speak.

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Yes, the “I just can’t save” often makes me just as uncomfortable. The last person that said that to me had replaced their kitchen 3 times in 6 years…
I have experience on both ends of the spectrum, having come from a single parent family subsisting on government benefits.

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So my Mom was a boomer - an elementary school teacher. Do you know any teachers even back then who were overpaid? I don’t. She was extremely good at saving. I know, because I watched it happen. Cars were all secondhand, and kept for a long time, or handed down to the kids. Most food was prepared at home - chuck steak & beans in the crock pot. You eat the same thing every day, but its healthy and very economical. The thought of something like a “starbucks” was just laughable - on our rare meals out, we kids weren’t allowed to order drinks; it was tap water only. And vacations - once we got “rich” - happened in the secondhand camper.
We did get to eat “avocado toast” but our avocados came from the tree in the backyard. When they were in season, we got to eat avocados. When they weren’t, we didn’t. And when we moved to a house that didn’t have a tree - no more avocados, except when we visited our grandmother, who also had a tree.
What I learned from my mom is this: saving is all about establishing maybe a dozen or two behavior patterns in life that all end up with one goal: you don’t spend money on things that don’t provide long term value.
These habits remain with me today.

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and I replaced my kitchen once (kitchen sink twice), specifically: the first time, I discovered that the kitchen sink was rotted and molding everywhere. I had to take out the floor. The second time, an anonymous person reported us for havingta rat (already exterminated by the time the city came) and roaches… who handed us off to child protective services,ewho handed us off to Zoning, who said that our bedroom square fooot count didn’t meet code. The solution was to move a wall with full building permits.
A bigger reason why I can’t save involves the demands from relatives who also threaten suicide. In judging the cost… the suicide of a relative is incredibly high.
Another huge reason I can’t save is that the government taxes you extremely heavily if you do NOT invest in “approved” investments, but almost not at all if you do; and I am not free to invest in those investments.
But the kitchen replacement I did myself. The replacement stove is two $48 OSTER hotplates; the replvcement oven was a $80 OSTER from Ollies. The replacement sink was a $20 craigslist one; the counter was my son’s woodworking (it’s beautiful red oak, with a 10% draft to the sink). The flooring was top level durability vinyl.
My car is a 1999 voyager I got for free fifteen years ago. I live in a trailer home.
I can’t save. And it is due to spendthrift behavior.
But it isn’t my own fault.
It is the fault of the fact that I am not free.

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… there actually is another factor greater than anything I said so far, above.
The original term “monkey on your back”, I think isn’t a reference to drugs, but an allusion to a story from 1001 Arabian Nights, in which a man had to carry at djinn in the form of a great ape, everywhere.
There IS such a thing; and it isn’t drugs in my case, and it wasn’t anything I ever sought; it was imposed on me.
And the rest of what I said above is at least partly but an aspect of this bigger story.

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May I suggest you get a copy of Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames.
 
Also, take a look at the FIRE movement.

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-11/20-year-old-sells-blood-plasma-twice-week-fund-her-shopping-addiction

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Can’t remember the last time I bought a potato, bean, squash seed. Start small and work your way up.
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/vegetable/vegetables/planning-your-first-vegetable-garden/

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Let’s start with the total annual cost of telecomm services and supplies. It also happens to be our greatest security threat, so add those costs for Anti-virus, etc. and wow! that’s a lot of money for what? instant communications? I know a guy who is still paying for his 30 something kids cell phones on a “family” plan. We’re talking thousands of dollars a year for most middle to upper classmates. Now increasingly, as boomers who haven’t already been re-fired and loose income the nuisance cash flow out becomes a pit in the stomach.

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Respectfully, the comment about “some ding-dong trips on your lawn…” (creating an entity to protect assets, not withstanding), seems to reveal a trait people who’ve attained wealth (whether by hook or crook) start to have about all us plebeians who Caesar has not blessed–oh sorry that was another live time–people without discipline some inter-generational wealth and a family trust, are a bunch of ding-dongs. Of course that’s why we’re here reading the great materials Chris and Adam generously present. That said, when the ding-dongs have nothing left to loose, they will loose-it and none of our asses will be as safe as our assets. Am I a ding-dong for spending so much time and thought here when I could be writing a book about the ding-dong revolution?

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Ding-Dong Army

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Thanks for this interview Chris, I learned a lot even though it’s not quite feasible for me yet. I hope someday soon it will be. I really enjoy the content that helps one think in an aspirational yet realistic manner, rather than the alternatives.
I’d love more discussion, especially from anyone else who’s set up a similar structure and can help to weigh the various options. Did you look at any other providers or structures?

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Can one use a QRP to invest directly in Treasuries

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I’d love more discussion, especially from anyone else who’s set up a similar structure and can help to weigh the various options. Did you look at any other providers or structures?
Yes, I did. I liked the QRP over a standard self-directed because of the extra layer of protection offered by the LLC. In the US anybody can sue anybody for anything at any time. Merits be damned. I've also learned that once anything goes to trial in front of a jury, anything's possible. So having various structured layers of legal protections is, unfortunately, a part of life in the US.
Can one use a QRP to invest directly in Treasuries?
Yes, you can. The LLC will have a managing member (you) that will be responsible for directing the investments. That LLC will have a bank account and a checkbook, same as any other legal entity. That bank account can be linked to Treasury Direct. I have not taken that last step yet, but I plan to. I don't fancy the tax benefits of that move, Treasury interest is already partially tax advantaged, I just would prefer any loose cash to be earning more than slightly above 0% in a bank account.
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And I grow mint, thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, lemongrass, chives, chamomile, tarragon, parsley, etc. and pick for relatively free, while someone i know pays $3- for a wilting bunch from the supermarket when they need it, or they go without. My health and my pocket are better off. Many of these herbs are perennial and cuttings can be shared for free with others, and the seed saved from the annuals to plant again. Bonus - I get to control the (lack of ) chemicals that are sprayed onto them, and there is no plastic packaging. My three serves of herbs that go into a soup would cost this other person $9-. Ouch. We most of us have an area of financial weakness, but we also can control what we spend or source for free. In Australia where most people are quite well off by world standards, ‘I can’t save’ really means, I can’t be bothered to prioritise saving and changing my habits so that I can retain wealth and build a stable financial base.

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I just ordered the book. Can anyone give me a ballpark cost of setting up this EQRP account and LLC?

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Setting up an LLC in VA will cost you $100 if you do it yourself, and an annual “registration fee” of $50.
Here is the link to the VA State Corporation Commission’s forms and more info:
https://www.scc.virginia.gov/clk/dom_llc.aspx

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I’m curious about Chris’ and other people’s experiences more than a year after this interview. Would love to hear some feedback.