Guest post by Julie Pepper Lim, Marketing & Communications Coordinator at Meritage Medical Network.
Our Wellness Committee is calling June, “Show Me the Money” Month as we focus on financial health.
What is financial wellness? Maybe it’s building an empire, feeling confident you’ll have enough savings when you retire, or just peace of mind that you’re doing what you can to save for the future.
At Meritage, we work with Sequoia Advisors for our Fidelity 401k program. Jason Aceituno recently came out to share information on retirement planning & budgeting, advantages of starting early, our plan highlights, tax advantages, investment options, rollovers and distributions, and even the basics on how to get started.
This is one of those areas where what we don’t know, might hurt us. “According to the latest retiree health care cost estimate from Fidelity Benefits Consulting, a 65-year-old couple that retired in 2017 will need an average of $275,000 (in today’s dollars) to cover medical expenses throughout retirement.” Sobering? Possibly. Important information? Definitely.
Jason gave us an overview of the different deferral types like the Traditional (Pre-tax) and Roth (Post-tax) and why one might make sense at one time in a person’s life, and why the other might make sense at another time.
He defined what match really means and how to best utilize Meritage’s 5% match.
Jason asked who likes to budget and well in a whole room full of people, only one hand went up—everybody’s got their thing. If you don’t like it, it’s still good to know about things like mutual funds and hands off/hands on investment strategies and what the equation is to figure out your fund’s Target Date.
Some people love investing and budgeting, some people dread money talk at all. Jason’s overview was a great way to prime people to start thinking about their investments, but Jason also came out for some one to one time to delve a little deeper into people’s financial stories and help them layer the foundation towards financial wellness.
I hadn’t checked my account in a while and was pleased to discover there was more in it than I anticipated. Jason was also really helpful in making recommendations about what I might do to make that number grow, without too mitigating a consequence in terms of cash flow each week.
No matter where you are in your financial plan, it’s good to get on the path towards building. So, this June, we’re advocating financial wellness.
Go ahead, “show us the money.”