228: Revolutionary Banking Strategy That Pays Off Debt 4X Faster with Bill Westrom
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Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast! Today, we're exploring a revolutionary banking strategy that's completely changing how Americans save, invest, and conquer debt. Forget everything you thought you knew about traditional banking – it's time for a major financial upgrade.
Our guest, Bill Westrom, co-founder and CEO of TruthInEquity.com, brings 30 years of invaluable banking and lending experience to the table. He's here to expose how the traditional financial system often fails families and, more importantly, how to fix it. Bill will explain his innovative "credit line banking" approach, a powerful method that has helped families pay off debt up to four times faster, transforming financial stress into clarity and control.
In this episode, we chat about…
America's Debt Reality Check: We'll challenge the common perception of $18 trillion in consumer debt and explore how modern living expenses have fundamentally shifted, making traditional financial advice less effective.
The Truth About Credit Card Payments: Uncover the hidden mechanics behind how credit card companies calculate minimum payments and why strictly adhering to their terms can keep you trapped in a cycle of never-ending debt.
Credit Line Banking Fundamentals: Get a clear explanation of this game-changing strategy: banking directly out of a credit line instead of a traditional checking account to leverage your income just like the big banks do.
The Money Flow System: A step-by-step breakdown of how to strategically move your income into credit lines to suppress balances and dramatically slash interest costs.
Bill Payday Strategy: Learn why consolidating all your bill payments to a single day each month can unleash the maximum debt-crushing power of your income.
The Payoff Formula: Discover a simple, powerful calculation that allows you to predict exactly how fast you can pay off any debt: Balance ÷ Surplus = Payoff Timeline.
Key Takeaways
The Problem with Banks: Your money helps banks make money, while you pay high interest on your debts.
The Credit Line Answer: Using a credit line lets you use your own money to lower debt faster and pay less interest.
You're in Control: This method puts you in charge of your debt payoff, not the bank.
Resources from Bill
Resources from Mike and Nichole
+ Read the transcript
Mike: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Richer Geek Podcast. Today we have Bill Westrom. He's the co-founder and CEO of TruthInEquity.com. He's the architect behind Credit Line Banking©, a revolutionary banking strategy that's changing how Americans save, invest, and pay off debt. He has 30 years of banking and lending experience. He knows firsthand how the traditional financial system is failing families. We're going to get into that, and he has set out to fix it. His mission is simple: Empower everyday Americans with the tools and strategies. Banks used to stay ahead. His innovative approach has helped families pay off debt up to four times faster turning financial stress, we all have that, into clarity and control. How are you doing Bill? Bill: Doing great, sir. How are you today? Mike: Doing great. Yeah. Staying warm. We're living life, can't complain. No one cares. And uh, so I just do my thing. Before we start the podcast uh, off and get into the nitty gritty, tell us a little bit about who Bill is and how did you get involved in what you do now? Bill: Well, we gotta go back a long way, almost 30 years. Uh, 1996, I actually did a headhunter a favor and went on a job interview for a mortgage broker job. I owned a mortgage, but I didn't know anything about the business. I just did my buddy a favor, and uh, I ended up getting the job and became a mortgage broker. Fast forward about four or five years later, Australian Bank introduced this unique, new mortgage strategy, which I built my business around. That was back in 2001, 2002, and 2005. I went to work for that bank. They figured I was a pretty smart guy, so they hired me, but I realized quickly I was gonna starve to death because relying on brokers to make my living wasn't gonna happen. So I did grab a broker that did get the strategy, and he and I shook hands in 2006, and Truth In Equity was born. We're working on our 19th year teaching people how to bank and borrow smarter so they can save more, stress less. And like you said, pay off debt up to four times faster. If that's what they wanna do, they can use it for investments too. Mike: Well, yeah, let's talk a little bit about that, because here's what America's all about: spend, spend, spend, debt, debt, debt. debt. You know, I look at the rest of the world, they tend to save more. And we have too many commercials that say, "Buy this $800 thing, buy this 100K car." So, what are we doing wrong? What does that lifestyle tell us? Bill: Well, to be honest with you, we're not doing anything wrong as far as I'm concerned. Uh, If you look at the debt situation, we owe $18 trillion in consumer debt. $12 trillion of that is mortgage debt, which is good debt, because that's an asset there. You just have an encumbered asset. See, the other 6 trillion – cars, student loans, et cetera. That's just living our lives. Mike: Yeah. Bill: You know, our debt's gone up about 8 trillion since 2012 after the bubble popped and we had our recovery and rates have risen the whole way. And people say, but what that tells me, we're really good consumers. That's what we're supposed to do. Because you can't live in this country without debt. You won't have an education, you don't get a car, and you don't get a house. If you look at the cost of living, forget the eggs and the gas, you and I are close to the same age. Our parents, the only thing they had to spend money on to communicate and entertain us was electricity for a TV and a phone on the wall. If you look at people's budgets now, you cannot communicate, cannot entertain yourself without paying somebody. And this will blow your mind. $350 to $400 is the average monthly expenditure for an American to have a cell phone, a TV with cable or streaming, and our Spotify and our Netflix and our YouTubes, you cannot get anything without paying for it. We didn't have that when we were growing up. Mike: Yeah. Bill: And so there's an expense for people, it's just part of life now. It's expensive to live here now. You can't blame the consumer for being an irresponsible individual because if you look at the debt and credit report, 60-80% of the country has a credit score of 660 or better.Now six 60 isn't great, but that still gets you what you want. Mike: Good. Yeah. Bill: And the lowest percentage of the population are unlendable, and they're the people that we hear about on the news. But the other 80%, people are getting up, look around your own town. Thousands of people driving cars, or going someplace or pushing money into the economy. They're buying food. We're good at what we do. We really are. It's the effects of capitalism. Not putting it down, but the progression of capitalism. Now we gotta pay for the YouTubes and Netflixes etc. When we look at the debt problem, that's my biggest focus is we continue just like the government, if we continue to add on all this debt. Then we're going bankrupt as a country. And we're gonna go bankrupt as citizens if we don't have a better model of repaying this debt. The terms of repayment are causing most of the problems. You go out and buy a car - average monthly payment on a car is $600 to $750 for the next six or seven years. Then you buy a $400,000 home which is pretty average. There's $2,500 without taxes and insurance for 30 years. 30 years. People don't live in their homes for 30 years. They're refinancing, debt consolidation. Why do they have to refinance? To consolidate debt? Because they're doing what they're told. Mike: Yeah. Bill: You know what I mean? Mike: Yeah. Bill: And it just becomes an endless loop that never gets paid off. And if we did $ 8 trillion in 12 years, we're gonna do $10 trillion in another 10 years. At a certain point, the consumer base is not going to be able to service the debt a hundred percent. Mike: Yeah. We can't even pay the interest payment? Bill: Yeah. Mike: The government and things like that, and also people are just getting credit cards, paying the monthly payments, and it seems like there's no cap on the interest. I've seen some 18%, 20% interest. They're never gonna be paying any of that stuff off. It's just the monthly. Bill: You're right, they'll never pay it off if they follow whose terms of repayment? The banks. They don't even set it. People don't even know how that credit card payment is calculated because it's not amortized. You can't put it in an amortization table. So how do they come up with it? It's simply a percentage of the balance. If rates go from 18% to 22% more interest. They just have to increase the percentage. There is some modicum of repayment. Because if the rate goes up and the current payment percentage doesn't cover the new interest, then they have to buy new, they have to bump. That's how they determine the repayment of a credit card? They're not in the business of helping anybody repay. That's not the business model. You can find millions of people to extend your credit to mortgage brokers, et cetera. But how many up there out there are providing a solution to the problem they just sold you? They don't even ask that. That's not their business model. I'm not putting 'em down. They're good at what they do. Mike: Yeah. Bill: But it's not their business model. That's why I've been at this for 19 years because people need a wingman. Mike: Let's talk about the wingman. How do we take control of our money? What are some of the things that you can tell us that will help us? Bill: Let's look at what we're doing now. The traditional model: income goes to a checking account. We redistribute our income back into the economy on a 30-day cycle per the due dates. When's the utilities due? Autodraft this, wipe a card there. That's traditional banking. We earn our income, we make our payments, but the banks gotta play a role in it. Right? Because our money goes into a checking account; they take control of the money. They leverage our income into the asset world to make their money. I'm not disparaging the bank. That is their business model. They don't sell food, furniture, or shoes to earn their living. They leverage. Leverage is the key word. They leverage our income. When you bring in credit line banking, what I do. If you just look at the money and you look, this is how they make their money. Leveraging my income for financial gain. So we can do the same thing. We're gonna move it to the credit side, to the ledger, which is a little unknown for most people, but credit line banking means we're gonna bank out of a credit line. When you get paid that credit line's gonna have a balance. It could be a credit card, home equity line of credit, unsecured line of credit. We don't even know why the balance is there. We just know if there's a balance, there's interest. The higher the balance, the more interest we pay. With credit line banking, if you move your income from a checking account into that line of credit, it's considered a payment, correct? You know, if it goes to a debt, it's a payment. Well, If you push your whole paycheck in there, that's much bigger than the minimum payment, right? Say your $250 payment, $ 50 went to principal, and $200 went to interest. Well, if you put a $5,000 paycheck in there, they still only get $200 in interest. The remaining $4,800 knocks your balance down. If you had a $9,600 balance on the line of credit, minus $4,800, you just cut the balance in half. If you cut the balance in half, you cut your interest cost in half. You don't have to chase an interest rate to save interest. You chase the balance because the balance is what's costing you the money, not the interest rate. Does that make sense? Mike: Yeah, it's interesting. Bill: We use a revolving line of credit because it's got a two-way door. Which means you have access to whatever you put into it. So if you put $4,800 in today, you can get $4,800 tomorrow. So there's liquidity in that line of credit, just like a checking account. Now, this is a big thing that's part of my service, we help people establish Bill Payday. Everybody gets paid on one day. And why do we do that? So that $4,800 doesn't get touched? So it can suppress that balance and save us interest every day. Our money comes back out to the checking account and everybody gets paid. If you notice, we use a checking account to receive deposits, and we use a checking account to pay bills because that's what the rest of the world expects, to receive income and pay bills. I've replaced the bank under normal circumstances, your deposit goes to the bank so they can make money. When you put the line of credit into play, you've taken your money out of the bank's hands. They can't make money off your money anymore because you put it into your own vault called the line of credit. They can't go in and get that money. They can't do anything. You have complete ownership of the inflow and the outflow. That's why I call it credit line banking. You've replaced the bank with that line of credit. You start banking in and out of it, so your income suppresses the balance to save interest, pure leverage, right there, just like the bank. And then now, how do we get it paid back? How does the debt get paid back? The payback is the difference between your income and your expenses. Most people have money left over at the end of the month. It's because of all the debt payments they're having to make. That's the biggest chunk of money going out the door. If we put in $4,800 after paying interest and we pulled $4,000 out for expenses, that leaves us $800 positive cash flow. Mike: Yep. Bill: Then if you started the debt at 96, you'd end the month at 88 because you paid that $800 surplus as the payback. If you want to calculate, If you know what your surplus number is at the end of the month on average, you can take the balance you owe divided by your average surplus, and that'll tell you exactly how quickly you could pay off that debt. So If you got a calculator punch in 9,600 divided by 800, and that'll tell you exactly how long it'll take you to pay off that debt and It works. It's a hundred percent accurate. If you can do this for yourself, you're smarter than the credit card companies because you can actually tell yourself how quickly you're gonna pay this back. They can't tell you anything. Mike: Yeah. Bill: It's a matter of control. You've taken control away from you own the debt, you control the repayment, you control the interest cost, and the beauty of the line of credit is once you pay the $9,600 off, it's in the line of credit. You can use it again. For any of your listeners that want to get into your syndication or get into investing, this is how you can do it. By using other people's money and then recycling your income, that line of credit is an endless supply of working capital for as long as you own that line of credit and as long as you're earning an income. It's the most beautiful thing in the world, pal. I have 19 years experience doing this every working day in my life. Mike: Yeah. And I bet there's a lot of people now rewinding to get all that stuff again because it's probably blowing a lot of our listeners' minds right now. How do they set this stuff up? Bill: Who's they? Mike: The potential investor or the consumer. You're talking line of credits, they're going what do I do? Do I go to my bank and set it up? Or how do they start this process? Bill: Well, that's my service. That's why I'm here. Mike: That's your service. Bill: I'm the wing man. Mike: Yep. Bill: I've been in the lab working in the Petri dish with consumers, and it all starts with an initial phone call and getting the numbers. What do we earn? What do we owe? What do we spend? Now, I've got a full system built. TruthInEquity.com is the engine behind credit line banking because we get those numbers into the system and this is why I got hired on by the Australian Bank. This is why they thought I was a smart guy. In 2005, I wrote an amortization model specifically for this strategy. When anybody comes through the website, we get those numbers in and we go through that amortization table together. We'll have a Zoom call because I want to show everybody how this works. Here's the money flow, the money's gonna go in, go out. Here's our interest rate, here's the interest costs and I can project what this will do for that particular individual based on their own budget because everybody's budget is unique. Mike: Yeah. Bill: You and your neighbor might pay about the same for utilities, but your budget is nowhere near us. Mike: Yeah. Bill: So everybody's budget is unique and that's why I've got the one-on-one customization. So we can make it because everybody's a little different, depending on stage of life, kids, et cetera. That's why this thing is so agile and dependable because we're just working with no new products out there, regular checking accounts. Regular HELOCs, nothing new. We're just changing, rearranging the used but Again, I'm the wingman. If your listeners wanna know more, come talk to me. Because I can put all this stuff into visuals, and one reason I do this is to protect people from not doing it, that shouldn't be doing it, even though it sounds great, et cetera. They're depending on budgets and income and where they sit in life. I need to protect everybody, including myself, because if I'm taking money from people that I shouldn't, my reputation's gonna get destroyed and I'll be out of business. Mike: Yeah. And everybody against Bill Westrom with TruthInEquity.com. Check it out. Some people are gonna go, "Hey, this is too good to be true." Soon as someone figures out something this good, there's gonna be regulations, the bank's gonna get upset. What do you have to tell people that say, "This credit line banking, it's too good." Bill: I've been hearing that a lot for 19 years. Mike: Yeah. Sure. Bill: Statistically, most companies go out of business in the first five years, correct? Mike: Yep. Bill: In my opinion, those companies go out of business because they have a product the public doesn't want, or the public doesn't trust them. And I've been making my living like this for 19 years and somebody's gonna honor put that kind of trust and faith in me. You become a family member immediately, literally. And so too good to be true. I understand. Wall to wall carpet was too good to be true. Mike: The microwave oven, there's no way that you can do that. Bill: We got phones on our wrists. Mike: Yeah. Bill: Right. Dick Tracy, 1958 was that comic? Mike: Isn't that crazy? Bill: Too good to be true. You gotta have faith and belief in math more than anything else. because the math is, the numbers are that do all the work. You're gonna do, your own only manual move is to push money from checking account to line of credit. That's the only manual move if it's set up right. And set up right is at the back end getting bill pay, so it's automated. Getting the HELOC and the checking account to talk to each other. That's really important too. That's why I'm the wingman because I've been sourcing this stuff out for 20 years. I know who to go to, who to stay away from. Now to your question on the banks, I've never asked anybody's permission to do this. I don't need their permission. Nobody needs their permission because all you're doing is moving your money from a checking account to a line of credit and back to the checking account to pay bills. They don't need any part of this. They're just there to get you the line of credit, provide you a checking account and an online platform to pay your bills. I've actually had TD Bank, big bank out in the east. Mike: Yep. Bill: They called us and asked us not to send them any more customers. We sent them a lawyer with an $800,000 mortgage, and they asked us not to send them any more business. You know what we did? We laughed at 'em, and said, "How are you gonna know if I'm there or not?" And it comes to regulations and all that, nobody can do anything to you. Mike: Yeah. Bill: I don't provide loans. I don't provide software. I don't provide anything like that. It's education. I'm just transferring what's in my head to your head. And it can travel with you the rest of your life. You get to take it with you forever. . Whether you're looking at investments, you're looking at buying a car, anything, you always have it in your head. And again, back to that formula balance divided by surplus equals payoff. And more importantly than this, the people we're talking to right now, we have to get after their kids. Right? If adults today showed their kids their finances, most kids would probably say, "Show me how not to do this." You know what I'm saying? The younger folks, they're saying they don't want to buy homes. They don't want to play in this game because they've watched their parents. Struggle and struggle. And struggle. There's nothing wrong with their parents. Their parents haven't done anything. It's the business model of banking, the borrowing that we've been following for decades, that's causing the problem. And if you think about how we've been doing things, it's all an experiment. This whole credit thing is only about 35-40 years old. In fact, it's yours and my generation that kickstarted it. Because your parents or my parents' credit was not a big deal. They didn't have a pocket full of cards. . Mike: That's true. Bill: The credit game really got kickstarted in the eighties and the nineties. So what are we dealing with now? Well, it's the end result of an experiment that nobody knew how it was gonna end up. You know, being able to extend credit to people is easy. And there's trillions of dollars, waiting to be lent. Mike: Yep. Bill: And so obtaining credit is easy, and this experiment is proving the credit experiment of banking and borrowing today. It's proving itself out, it's unsustainable. Adding payment, after payment. And it's the interest rates that aren't a problem. That's only dictating the cost. And the small percentage of people that don't get loans anymore because that high interest rate disqualified them because of their debt to income ratio. Mike: Yep. Bill: The interest rate isn't the focal point, it's just got nasty side effects. That's all it really does. But the interest rate does not dictate terms of repayment. Mike: Yeah. Bill: So if you can control the balance, you can control the cost. If you can control the repayment, you control the overall costs. If you do it like the big boys do, you can have a life like the big boys. Mike: It's very interesting. Bill, when people go to TruthInEquity.com, you mentioned they can set up a time, Zoom call with you. What are the next steps? How do people say, "You know what, I wanna learn more about Truth In Equity." Bill: If you wanna learn more, go to the website, go to the contact us page, and you'll find a link to my calendar. And you'll find my personal cell number and I'll send you an e-book so you can get some of this in visuals. And if you land in my system, you'll be hearing from us. That first initial phone call, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, let's get to know each other and then we move on to that online meeting so we can get the numbers into the system. We'll get online together. Through that analysis, uh, if you're a good candidate, I'll extend an offer, and if you hire me, then I will help facilitate the loan process. I'm not a bank, I'm not a broker. I don't get paid for that. In fact, I do that for free, so I'll help facilitate the loan process. Once the loan is in play, that's when my real job kicks in, teaching and training. And so at that point, that's when the implementation process starts, and that's when I get closer to you versus farther away. You've done a mortgage? Sign the deal. Where's the mortgage broker? He's gone. He's off looking for somebody else with me. I'm calling, where are you? So through that implementation process, the first implementation meeting, you'll walk away with some homework assignments. This is all part of establishing bill pay day for the most part. Once we're up and running, then this is the most important part of my service. Six month performance guarantee. Through that guarantee, I have my students send me their line of credit statements so I can track and manage their progress form, and then we have performance review meetings at the end of six months. If I don't show up for performance review meetings, you're guaranteed a refund. If after six months the program is not working as prescribed. You're doing everything I'm telling you, you will get your money back guaranteed. It's a two edge guarantee. I gotta do my job and the program's gotta do its job. And I'll let everybody know I've given three refunds in 19 years and those three refunds were because I had employees that took money from people they shouldn't have taken money from. An 83-year-old man. For example, I had somebody take money from an 83-year-old. I fired the employee and I gave that guy his money back within 48 hours. Mike: Yeah Bill: But no refunds on lack of performance. Now at the end of six months, it does not end our relationship. It just changes the month to month because everybody is at a different level. I got people that quit sending me statements after three months. They were happy. I got a guy in Wisconsin that sent me every statement for the last seven years. And I don't, that's fine with me 'because I like seeing that. Mike: Yeah Bill: I like people keeping in touch with me. You're under no obligation after that but just know you paid for a lifetime retainer. Two years, three years. I had a guy call me, he's been with us for 12 years or 10 years, and he called back saying, "My line of credit's closing up, where should I go for a new one?" My personal cell number is in everybody's phone. I'm available Sunday through Sunday, so that's what you get outta me as the wingman. Mike: Yeah. Bill: You pay me, you put your trust and faith in me from day one. I've got your back. Until we're, would be both quite breathing. Mike: There you go. And hopefully that's not for a while. Let's hope. Bill: Yeah. I'm 60. I figure I got at least 30 more years left in me. Mike: Oh, there you go. Yeah, man. I don't even wanna think about that far. I'll just make it till tomorrow and I'll be fine. Bill: Yeah. Mike: Make it through the next golf round, and I'll be fine. Bill: There you go. Mike: Bill, it's been a pleasure. You know everybody. Bill Westrom, co-founder, CEO of TruthInEquity.com. Check it out. This is the first time that all of us have been mind blowing for this type of thing. We've been in that rut, because this is what we've been taught for so many years. This is a new way to take control of your life. Check it out again. truthinequity.com. Bill, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for uh, talking to us about this new concept. You've been doing it for 27 years, so it's new to us and not to you. Bill: It's been around a while. And you said earlier in the room. You're never too old to learn, never quit learning. Ever. And the more you know about what you're doing, the more you're gonna get out of it. Mike: That's right. Yeah. Bill, have a wonderful day and we'll talk soon. Take care. Bill: Thanks Mike.
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ABOUT BILL WESTROM
Bill Westrom is the Co-Founder and CEO of TruthInEquity.com and the architect of Credit Line Banking©, a revolutionary strategy helping Americans save, invest, and pay off debt up to 4x faster. With nearly 30 years in banking and lending, Bill empowers everyday families with the tools banks use to stay ahead. He’s not just a financial expert—he’s a passionate storyteller inspiring real financial independence and control.