15.
Optimizing while Planning for Kids
Your Results
You're doing a great job avoiding credit card debt, maintaining an emergency fund, and saving for retirement. Pat yourself on the back, you are well on the path to being the independent woman Beyonce always wanted you to be!
The next step is making sure you're optimizing your savings. We recommend that you attend the sessions on Goal Setting & Prioritizing, Credit Cards, Spending & Automating Your Money, Maternity Planning, and Investing.
All good financial planning starts with goal setting. We recommend that you join this session if you want to brainstorm your short-term and long-term goals and figure out how you will achieve them. If you're trying to save for college and retirement, should that extra dollar go to a 529 plan or your 401K?
In the Credit Cards, Spending & Automating Your Money session, we will include an exercise on spending. Where is your money going now and are there a few places to trim that can help you fund some of your goals? Do you have too much cash in your checking account? You're doing a good job managing your spending already. For you, a key piece will be automating transfers so you are building towards your goals and making sure your money is working for you automatically each month.
In the Investing session, we will also review some retirement vehicles like Health Savings Accounts which are often overlooked,and will discuss what a smart allocation of assets in your retirement accounts and other investing portfolios should look like. A 1% higher return on $100K over 20 years is >$40K! A similar swing in 401K fees (e.g., from 1.2% to 0.2%) can have an even bigger impact on your finances.
We know you're thinking about starting your family. In the Maternity Planning session, we will talk through how to plan for baby so can achieve your personal, profession, and financial goals.
Finally, in the Retirement or 401K / 403B and 401K Roll Over sessions, we will talk about optimizing your retirement. If you have a retirement plan from an old job, we will help you understand the fees in your plan (yes, 401Ks have fees) and if it makes sense to roll it over to an IRA or your current job's retirement plan. Once you understand your 401K fees and have all your accounts in one place, in the Retirement session, we will review some benchmarks for how to know if you're on track and will go through some exercises, so you know your retirement numbers and what you need to retire.
Our goal is to help you automate your savings so you can set it and leave it and watch your progress towards your goals.
What will the return on your day be?