Be Your Own Bank? The Wealth Strategy Most Families Never Learn

In this powerful episode, Jon sits down with Kristina Messenger of Messenger Financial Consulting to discuss one of the most talked-about financial concepts today:

What does it really mean to “Be Your Own Bank”?

Together, they break down:

•  Infinite banking explained simply 
•  How life insurance can be used beyond death protection 
•  Wealth strategies used by high-net-worth families 
•  Tax-advantaged financial planning 
•  Protecting your family and legacy 
•  Retirement, real estate, and financial freedom 
•  Why financial education is missing for most Americans 

Kristina also shares her deeply personal story of losing her husband at a young age — a tragedy that completely transformed her understanding of money, protection, and long-term financial planning.

This episode is not about sales tactics or financial hype. It’s about education, empowerment, and helping families understand the financial tools available to them.

If you've ever wondered:

•  How wealthy families build generational wealth 
•  Whether life insurance can be part of a real financial strategy 
•  How to create more freedom and security for your future 
•  What “infinite banking” actually means 

…this episode is for you.

🎙️ About the Podcast
 The Be Free and Clear Podcast challenges conventional thinking around money, homeownership, mindset, and financial freedom. Hosted by mortgage industry veteran Jon Mykala, each episode is designed to help people break free from financial stress and gain clarity about the life they truly want.

📌 Connect withKristina Messenger
 🌐 Messenger Financial Consulting

📌 Subscribe for more conversations on:

•  Financial freedom 
•  Wealth building 
•  Real estate investing 
•  Alternative financial strategies 
•  Mindset & legacy planning 
•  Homeownership 

#InfiniteBanking #FinancialFreedom #BeYourOwnBank #WealthBuilding #LifeInsurance #PersonalFinance #RealEstate #FinancialEducation #Mindset #BeFreeAndClear

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Be Free and Clear Podcast, the show that explores how to create an extraordinary life through your home, finances, and mindset. My name is John Michaela, your host, a 30-year veteran of the mortgage industry, and the founder of the Beefray and Clear Movement. This podcast is your guide to breaking free from financial stress, getting clear on what you really want, and creating the life you love. Each week, I'll bring you stories, strategies, and insights that challenge conventional thinking, showing you how your home, finances, and mindset can work together. If you've been searching for clarity, confidence, and a new way forward, you're in the right place. This is the Be Free and Clear Podcast. Hey it's John Michael here and with Be Free and Clear, and I've got a special guest that is going to introduce you to a topic that is out there in the market right now. How does the thought of being your own bank sound to you? Well, if it sounds intriguing, then I've got the perfect guest with us here today, Christina Messenger with Messenger Financial. Welcome, Christina. You are going to uh tell us uh how to be your own bank. Oh gosh, I hope the the people around me aren't listening to me. They're gonna come after me for this one. Here we go. Welcome, Christina.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Thank you, John, so much for having me. I am so excited to uh just be here and experience this awesome podcast that you are putting out there with so much relevant information that the world needs to know about. Uh being your Mink is just one of the many things that you're highlighting. So thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, my absolute pleasure. Well, you know, we're in changing times, right? Like I've been in uh I've been in the mortgage banking, you know, financial space for over 30 years. And um, there's a lot of the lot of things changing. We, you know, we're seeing uh, you know, in we we just got off of record inflation. Um, you know, the markets are all the way around are all-time highs. Geez, I I don't know if I've ever seen things like this. We've got real estate, you know, the SP, uh, gold prices, maybe not right as in during this episode, but we've hit highs, you know, cryptocurrencies got up there. It's just wow, what what an interesting time. But yet we still hear that people um, you know, are finding finding some struggles and challenges, both uh, you know, on an everyday standpoint or even making decisions. So um, I guess with with that in mind, you know, what kinds of things are you seeing in the market? And um, and maybe even before we get into that, give us maybe give us a little bit of background about like how you train, you know, how you got into this uh arena, um, and and maybe just a little bit about you, and then we'll we'll we'll we'll go down that path of talking about those things.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Absolutely. And I I think that you know, you're absolutely right on the fact that we have had so much change in the market, uh, so many things that are going on. And uh it's it's it's not just changing how we look at money, but it's also changing the direction of maybe what families are choosing to spend money on. And so that's actually a little bit tied to my story. I uh have been in the financial space as a very proud life insurance agent and financial consultant for 15 years. Uh, this job or career uh chose me. I did not wake up one day and say, I think that I will uh talk with people about the thing that they hate talking about most, life insurance. And uh I think that I will take on this task of educating middle America about wealth strategies. It actually came to me because of my life story. Uh unfortunately, at age 29, I lost my husband and in a motorcycle accident. And when you're in your 20s, uh no one thinks to talk to you about life insurance. You know, he had a business, we owned a home, two small kids. I worked full-time in corporate America. And um, I think that I had had life insurance through like my company, but you know, checking off the box for spouse or kids insurance when no one really kind of talks about that with you, it wasn't something in your 20s that you thought about. Uh, one of the things I love about, you know, today, 20 um 20 some odd years later, is that at least there's conversations about making sure you have life insurance, what is a trust, what is a will, right? We had no concept of any of those words in our 20s. And so unfortunately, that resulted in number one, um, my boys and I not having the financial protection that we needed uh when he left this earth, which meant that um, you know, I made some really great decisions. And then because I didn't have that education and that knowledge and knowing what to do, I also made some really bad decisions. And um I think that's par for the course when we don't know what to do. And then fast forward um a few years later, I had actually opened a granite company and uh was uh very successful at that. And a gentleman approached me and said, Hey, um, did you know that there is a financial product that if one of your homeowners doesn't come home because they pass away unexpectedly, that it would pay off the mortgage. And I literally he had no idea my story uh that just, you know, six years prior to that, that that that's what I had lived through. And I said to him, if what you're saying is legal and true, I will tell every household that I put granite in about this incredible financial product that you speak of. And uh, and so that financial product was actually called mortgage protection. And uh I um I guess started with what you would call a side hustle before I even knew it was called a side hustle. I literally decided to get my life insurance license and with the sole purpose of just teaching and telling each of my clients that this existed. What it ended up being for me was therapy. I didn't know it. It was the best therapy six years later to help me really deal with grief because I got to tell my story. I got to speak about my husband, um, I got to share like, here's the one thing he would tell you if he was here, like this is important. And that transpired into me actually transitioning uh to really jumping in and learning more about the financial industry, how life insurance is actually used with very wealthy families to create their own banks, how life insurance is used with small business owners to protect, you know, their baby, if you will, the thing that they birthed, uh, how life insurance is um being used with huge corporations today to protect the greatest minds that they have, with like key account managers and executive bonuses. There's so many things that I think the average person doesn't like to talk about life insurance because it reminds them of death. But the fact is that in this industry, they actually started selling it as death insurance, but it didn't sell because it was called death insurance. And that if people would really focus on the word life, uh, this insurance is to in today's world, life insurance is actually meant to give you more life. And I think that if we focused on life and and what it can do for us, then we're able to use a lot of different financial products that are at the core life insurance, but we're able to fund our life and um what we want to do, whether it's you know, buying real estate, buying businesses, leaving a legacy, protecting our loved ones. There's just so much more that we can do. So uh that's how I got started. Um my story continued to unfold. Uh I uh really have a heart and a passion also for protecting the insurability of our children, because uh unfortunately in 2015 I lost my special needs son. And again, in my 20s, nobody had told me that I should have protected the insurability. So one of the things I speak a lot about when I get an opportunity to share my story is that if you're a parent seeing this, uh we do have a responsibility to protect our children's insurability. And um, it's not something fun to talk about, but um, that if if he would have had life insurance or life insurance with living benefits, my story would have been again totally different. And so uh thank you for asking because when I get to share about you know my husband in heaven, Doug, or my son Jacob, um it is a reminder that I'm pretty sure this is why I was put on earth, is just to bring uh the actual reality of how important that these financial products are to our entire wealth plan.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, I thank you, Christina, for you know, for sharing moments that were um obviously very, very difficult. And I, you know, I appreciate you being willing to put that out there and it and it touches too, because um, I think you're right, you know, you know, life insurance. I I know even early on, uh my early exposure to life insurance didn't have all those elements that you talked about. And then on top of you know, the the strategy part of it with you know wealth and um tax planning, there is predominantly an emotional factor that we, I don't know, I guess as finite human beings really don't want to address, maybe, and but but is so crucial and critical and you put in that human story behind it. And I know you're an educator too, because you and I've spent other time uh talking about how you know how you run workshops and classes and you feel you know very passionate and compelled to just educate people so that it comes out of like, hey, that you're not just trying to sell a product, you you literally want people to see, you know, see the these opportunities, paths, and um and and vulnerabilities that we have and how to you know contend with them as best possible. So I appreciate this.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Thank you so much. Yeah, it is uh, you know, we have Life Insurance Awareness Month, which is awesome and different things throughout the month. But one of the things that I like to kind of jokingly say is that I wish there was more emphasis on protecting our lives as much as emphasis there is on protecting our cell phones, because you know, there is this kind of upside down um, you know, thing going on here where we should be very excited about protecting our lives, if you will. But um, talked about uh about as much as it should be.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

What that's a but that's a great um that that's a great analogy, though, because um I know like I so I've had some uh some experiences uh regarding life insurance. Um and inside the marketplace, so you know, from a consumer perspective, you know, sometimes uh life insurance can get a bad rap because I think people where where it comes from is people are sold a product that doesn't fit their needs.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

And so they really what's what's happened is you've they've had a poor assessment done by you know an agent or a financial planner that you know didn't maybe go through an entire uh uh review of of what the true needs were, and um, and so so then that ends up um evolving into you know the the the the insurance product getting a bad rap. So what and and me knowing about you, how do you educate people so that they can feel comfortable uh knowing you know what they're getting into, how they can how you make them feel empowered with making a decision around something that doesn't come back to bite them or turn into one of those nightmare stories that we hear about?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, I think education is the key. Actually, my entire financial practice for the last 15 years has been built on education. Uh, I not only host events nationwide uh with different ladies that I'm able to mentor in this industry where we allow women to come together and socialize and network. And then each month we teach a wealth tip. Uh, but I also host class for, you know, husbands, wives, your partners, business associates, where we uh Money 101 is one of them, where we talk about, you know, from the very basics of investing all the way through to how do I know if my retirement wealth strategy is more taxed heavily based? Or do I have some of these, you know, taxed advantage strategies on the docket because we don't know what the tax rate will be when we retire. And uh and then also we've been able over the last decade to put together a class called uh business bootcamp and uh what to know about social security, Medicare 101. These are all things that uh actually play into part of building the house for your retirement, right? It's not just a 401k or an IRA. There are so many other strategies uh that come along with that and understanding. And so my entire agency is uh built on making sure that middle America and upper upper middle America, because that's really the crux of who's holding America together today, um, that we have access to free financial education, whether that be in person or on Zoom. And I think that for me, specifically a woman in a very male-dominated industry like, you know, financial consulting and life insurance, for me, it I know that I'm bringing hope uh to the women that ultimately are having to make more decisions when it comes to wealth. Number one, women live longer. And number two, we are generating more money in the workplace than we have ever generated before. And we need the confidence to know that the financial decisions that we are making are not only going to be impactful for our lives, but as women, we have a desire to create that legacy beyond us. And I'm not saying men don't by any means, but there is an innate nature there where women are wanting to learn how do I create legacy with wealth and life insurance. And so uh thank you for you know recognizing that education is a piece of that. I I think that everyone should have access to free financial education. And I really wish uh my soapbox would be I really wish that in colleges and in high schools they would bring back, you know, things like how to know if your interest rate is working for you or against you, you know, what is the truth about compound interest and how to balance a checkbook and what to know about a credit rating and things of those, just those basic things. Uh, when I get my own planet, I'm definitely gonna make sure we can those classes.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Well, I couldn't agree more on the educational part. Um, what so I'm gonna extract on that for just a moment and jump into I I wanted to just to grab a piece you're talking about because you're just mentioning things like 401ks and IRAs, and you know, for viewers or listeners that you know aren't um aren't super familiar with some of those vehicles that are out there, um the what the way I'm gonna dumb it down for myself for just a moment is saying, like, hey, listen, you're not trying to show uh or tell people like go out and buy life insurance and just use that as your your vehicle too. You are really trying to be holistic in your approach where um can you share a little bit about like, hey, this isn't just about like you know, buying life insurance. It's it's looking at the appropriateness for, you know, when do you just open a you know unqualified account with your spouse and you know buy mutual funds or when do you buy an IRA? How do you maximize your employer's uh matching through your 401k? Can you can you give a little bit of flavors how you would look at that, like multi-dimensional approach?

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Absolutely. I'm very holistic in that. Uh that is something that we pride ourselves on. And one of the things for us is that we're a no-fee financial consulting agency, meaning there's never a fee to sit down and do a strategy appointment, whether you have zero or you have a hundred million. It doesn't matter. There's no fee for that. Uh we work really well if you have a tax strategist or another financial advisor, kind of sitting down and looking from the ground up. What do you have? And where might there be an opportunity for a different type of financial product to help you? We do a lot of education around are you taking advantage of free money? Meaning, does your company have a matching 401k? If so, we love free money, uh, making sure that we're maximizing that out. We then take a look at Roth IRAs. You've got options there. I'm a safe money strategist, meaning any of the financial products that I work with, you can never lose any money in those indexed accounts. So we also have indexed Roth IRAs, where if your reason why you haven't opened a Roth IRA is because you didn't want your money in the market, then you can do an indexed Roth, still taking advantage again of the tax code to be able to put after tax dollars away and after 59 and a half, be able to pull that money out without paying taxes on it. A huge strategy that most middle America misses. And we also take a look at, you know, what are you paying on insurance? Do we do we just have term? Do we have term with living benefits? Uh, insurance has changed over the last the last 25 years. There is now actually life insurance that you can access if you're diagnosed with a cancer, heart attack, stroke, cardiac arrest. You get admitted to a nursing home, you're diagnosed with Alzheimer's. This is important because, again, most of us will never unfortunately be able to afford true long-term care. But through the power of life insurance, there are financial products that can act like long-term care and give you more strength and stability in your entire overall wealth plan. Uh, so we take a look at that. We take a look and see, you know, are there other tax strategies using maybe indexed accounts with life insurance where you can grow that money tax deferred using the tax code, take that money out tax-free. Specifically, if you're a small business owner or an individual who's heavily on the 401k side, right? We need something to kind of offset that. Um, and then we also look at, you know, maybe you have old 401ks that have been out there because now today uh we are in definitely uh a time where most of us who are in the workforce today and have been entered the workforce in the last 10 or 15 years, we will have between five and eight jobs, which means we're gonna end up with multiple individual retirement accounts known as IRAs. We're gonna end up with, you know, multiple 401ks. And so I work with um my clients to we go find those, we roll them over and doesn't cause any taxation problems, but we roll them over into their name and really, again, leverage that as part of their wealth strategy. And so we take a look at all of those things. The additional things that we take a look at that sometimes people don't think about are uh Social Security, right? How does that play into it? We look at mortgages. Are we really utilizing our mortgage in the way that we should? Some of us we have a desire, we were put here on earth to pay off our house like before we retire. That's awesome. That equity can actually be used as part of a wealth strategy down the road. Um, reverse mortgages are not a bad word, we tell our clients. Reverse mortgages have come a long way, and uh they actually should be part of your retirement plan. Uh, we take a look at um additional, you know, assets and is there planning, legacy planning that you want, right? Um, and talk about wills and trust and power of attorneys because all of those things are just as important as just a term life insurance, right? So my practice is completely holistic in taking a look at all of those things. We evaluate do you have other things like gold and silver, crypto, uh, some of the um more non-traditional, if you will, uh ways to invest. Uh, but it is important that we diversify and we don't just have everything in the stock market.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah, that is great. So you you mentioned non-traditional. So we hey, we we we were teasing our listeners and viewers in the beginning with saying be your own bank. So just from a super high level, because we, you know, we we've we've got limited time inside of these episodes, from a super high level, what does that mean to be your own bank? We've also heard the term infinity banking. What is what does that mean in um in the terms that we're seeing thrown away, you know, thrown thrown around on on social media and you know, out there in in today's different alternate investing strategies?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, well, just like the rotary phone used to only do one thing, right? The rotary phone only used to call one person at a time. Uh life insurance, which we have traditionally understood to just pay out when someone dies, uh, now actually does a lot more than that. And one of the things that it does is provide the ability using the IRS tax code for family. Families, whether you're just regular old two-income W-2 employees, or you are a millionaire or a billionaire, you have access to the same financial strategies to be able to use life insurance products to create wealth that you get to access in real time and allows you to be your own bank. And this term has been probably being used for about 20 years. Most of the time, when it has come up over the last two decades, people believe that that's only through a financial product, a life insurance product called whole life insurance. But that has changed. There's actually additional life insurance products like indexed accounts that are being used in order for families to be able to, let's say they want to buy a house and they know that they also need to start saving. A very simple way to look at these be your own bank is maybe you're going to be saving for two or three years into a high yield savings account, but you also need life insurance. Well, we might use that indexed universal life insurance or that whole life insurance product and build it in such a way where you can start putting monthly contributions in there. It's going to have your death benefit. It might have living benefits, but then it's building a cash value. And you might still be able to build that cash value up over that same time period, two or three years. But the beautiful thing is, is at the end of that two or three years, when you're ready to buy a house, now you can just borrow that money out and have that money for your closing while you still have that life insurance and those other benefits. And depending on how that account is built, we like to build them where that account over here continues to credit interest as if that money is there, even though you've taken it out and now you have it on a new asset. So it's working for you in two places at once. So it's a very simple way. But we also have, you know, those individuals who are buying multifamilies and uh these huge, you know, multiplexes, right? And uh we're able to build accounts out there that have life insurance that protect their entire investment portfolio. So if somebody has four or five or six million dollars uh to protect their entire investment portfolio, we use that life insurance and that opens a larger account for us to be able to stuff cash into. And theoretically, that's where this came from being your own bank. We're stuffing that cash in, and then those investors are able to take that money out again in real time, go buy the next property, pay themselves back after they flip it, you know, or after maybe um they resell it in a couple of years. Maybe it's a buy and hold for two or three years. But that gives them leverage to not have to worry about what do my financials look like to the bank? Because they are their own bank. And they're taking those profits and stuffing them back in there. Uh, it's a it's an amazing, amazing product for um just the very basic person that wants to uh save and needs life insurance to the the most incredible investor who has a portfolio across the United States. Uh, billionaires have been using this strategy for almost 30 years. Middle America hasn't really heard about it because uh it wasn't until about 20 years ago when we took the limits down from uh starting these accounts at $250,000. Our company's been able over the last 22 years to take that limit all the way down to starting these accounts with just $150 a month.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Wow, holy smokes, that's amazing. What a great opportunity, especially for you know, for people that are getting started, you know, with all the challenges that were already out there. Um, now all of a sudden there's this vehicle that gives them, you know, at least one more option to look at to see if it, you know, if it's the right fit for them. So um, hey Christina, you'd mentioned earlier that um when you got started, that uh this was, you know, this originally was kind of a little side hustle for you. So what I find interesting is that, you know, a lot of people are out there right now, and it's part of our Beefy and Clear program, right? Like, you know, there's there there are people looking for um sound, low-cost opportunities to generate additional cash flow uh for their households. Maybe it is so they can go out and buy a home, or or maybe it's something they're looking at, you know, as they move into retirement where uh they're moving out of a corporate job and they want something that's a little um you know, a little less uh demanding on uh on a time schedule that they can they can use their use their own scheduling and and and uh time constraints fit it, you know, fit it to their needs. Um, what kind of opportunity do you have you created through Messenger Financial for folks that might be interested in something like that?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

I love this question. Um, probably besides being a wife and a mom first, my most favorite thing on earth is actually mentoring and coaching individuals to building a profitable and sustainable business in life insurance and financial services because uh this industry has allowed me to each year earn multiple hundreds thousand dollars, free trips. That's great on the monetary side, but I know I'm making a difference in my community while still being a wife and mom first, because that's my most important thing. And so uh I actually uh have a mentorship program that does not cost anything to be part of that. There uh is a requirement for you to obtain a license in our industry. Each state uh has their own license, but on average, across the United States, to get started is only about $300, which sounds crazy because of the amount of money that you can make. Um, you also in our company own your book of business from day one, which is really important in this industry, especially because I believe just like you in what you're doing, you're branding yourself, not another company. We need to be really good at branding ourselves as uh the person in our community that is bringing hope, right? And so um that mentorship program has really exploded and allowed me to help more women jump in this industry. Uh very proud of that. And um and also allowed individuals who, as you said, um might have retired, but still are not ready to completely not working. Uh, I have helped uh a lady who is 72 years old for the last two years make over $100,000 in this industry, even though she retired out of um working for the Department of Public Safety and had been a police officer her whole life. She wanted to continue to give back. And I've also helped individuals in their 20s uh who want to be stay-at-home moms, but they want to be able to pay for the extra dance classes and vacations. And uh so they're able to make an extra thousand to two thousand a month and still be at home because of the power of our education first system. We teach financial education classes in our communities. We teach the individuals that uh we mentor how to do this and how to bring that much needed education and also make a very incredible commission by providing the right financial tool that that family might be looking for. And so uh, yes, thank you for asking me that. I love mentoring. I would be honored to mentor anyone who is either looking for a full career change or just some extra income. I work in every state, including Puerto Rico, and uh you frequently will see me flying all across the United States uh helping different individuals. So uh I am it's my greatest honor to be able to uh help someone not only get started, but stay profitable and sustainable in this industry.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Oh, that is great. And it is so in line with our beef free and clear values, you know, of everything from uh making sure that your home aligns with your finances, your purpose, peace of mind. And then here, you know, we're finding uh methods of free cash flow and freedom for them. So uh, Christina, hey, I I gotta tell you, I love um, I just love your your sincerity, uh, how genuine you are. Um you're truly an educator. You're not here to try to uh to to sell anybody a product or a service. You're not you're not looking to try to poach other financial clients as business, you're even willing to work with people. Uh, that's important to me because a lot of uh I do work with a lot of financial advisors that I do trust and I think they're wonderful people. Um, and that in and you come from a standpoint of wanting to even support their business by just providing education to people. So this I I just I can't tell you how much I appreciate you being on uh the podcast with us and sharing all this knowledge. Um, we are going to look at uh for viewers and listeners, we are going to look at having Christina back for a follow-up episode where she's gonna go a little bit deeper into uh her strategies for uh real estate. Uh Christina is uh she's uh matter of fact, I'm speaking for you, but you know, uh you you even mentioned that you're you're a real estate investor as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yes. Love real estate. I think it I you know, I do subscribe to that. Every if you want to own a home, you should own a home. Everyone should. Uh, and I think that real estate, as far as legacy funding and leaving something to our kids, uh, for me, that is way high on my list. That's a tangible asset that they can have and it'll be an investment property to them as well, and allows my love for them to live on. So love investing in land and real estate, actually.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

That's great. Uh so yeah, we definitely want to uh make sure that we uh we get the uh schedule uh an additional um an additional show for us here. And I've gotta I'm gonna try to see if I can get your um information put up on the screen for everybody. So you if if anybody does want to uh get in contact with Christina, uh we've got uh her um information in the banner. Christina, I'm gonna have you repeat it for our podcast listeners so that they know how to best get a hold of you if they want to reach out.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Absolutely. Uh, you can reach me at my email address or my website, which has my phone number and my email, but messenger, like don't shoot the messenger. I love to bring the message of hope to you. So it's messenger financial consulting.com.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Perfect. Awesome. Okay. Well, hey, Christina, thank you again for being here. We look forward to the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Thanks for having me. I appreciate you and everything that you're doing for the community to help them be free and clear.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

My pleasure. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Thanks. Bye bye.