Dividend-paying whole life insurance

Never could see the logic in borrowing my own money.

I'm thinking the same thing, perhaps I just need to find an investment that will yield about 5% or so (after tax) that if really needed I could cash out at some point.  That way I could put half of our savings in that to get a decent/safe return.

Chris.

Guess my thoughts are confirmed, didn't seem like a great way to invest money, especially after looking at the plan and seeing that it changes to a "MEC" in 10 years.  Reading up on that they have big tax implications when you start taking money out.

Chris.

I concur with the others.  I've always heard to run from whole life for the simple fact that it's a bad investment versus buying term and investing the rest.

Here's a quote from Dave Ramsey on Whole Life:

It's simple. Whole life is about ten times more expensive than good level term insurance. That alone should be enough to make you walk away. You also realize ZERO returns on whole life policies for the first three years, even though these policies are pitched as a vehicle to build up savings for retirement. After that, your "savings" still only grow at about two or three percent.

Want more? The savings you've finally built up after being ripped off with high premiums for years won't go to your family when you die. They'll still only get the face value amount of the policy.

Whole life is a horrible savings plan attached to expensive insurance. Stay away from it!

- Dave

Where would you have your emergency fund and funds needed in the short term (e.g., the OP's property tax payments)? We're talking about <10% of the OP's financial assets,, without any information about the composition of his other investments, and very little about his goals.

You can find savings that pay more than 0.25%.

The main reason the $50k sits in a savings account is because my wife is afraid of other investments at this point.  Yes we get crappy interest on it, but it's money that if for emergency.  I'm trying to convince her to put some more into our Roth's each year and to try and do some staggered CD's which will at least get a better rate and we'd still have access to the cash in time if we needed it.

Most retirement investments right now are mostly in stocks, US for the most part.  We're still at least 10 years from retirement, though it's more likely 15-20 before we really retire.  Based on my projections one of us could retire at 55, maybe even both of us, though we both really love our jobs so if that's the case there is no need to retire at that age and we could go for another 5-10 years.

Chris.

One thing to always be said about savings is it will give you a > 0% return.  The same can't be said about most other investments.