Maybe you are getting up in years. If you have kids and you like’em, you would be passing down your wealth. To a lot of people this is a big part of their legacy. Do you trust your children won’t take their inheritance and squander it at the casino or on stupid things? Most people don’t need cash, they need income. So for you, as you age, you can be secure in knowing that a payment will show up each month. For your children, they become the beneficiary of the note. You have then assisted them by providing them with an asset that pays out incrementally every month. The thing to remember is that this asset can be liquidated. It’s just not as easy to access it as it would be in a savings account. And that’s a good thing!