Planning your dream vacation starts now! Here’s a tip: instead of scrambling to pay for your trips last minute, why not save a little each month?

1️⃣ Estimate your yearly travel expenses.
2️⃣ Break it down into a monthly savings goal.
3️⃣ Automate savings into a high-yield savings account.
4️⃣ Enjoy guilt-free vacations knowing it’s all covered!

Even if you don’t have travel plans yet, we recommend still saving ahead. That way, you can pack your bags stress-free when the opportunity arises.

“One fun conversation we have with a lot of clients is financial planning and helping you plan for vacations for the year. Sometimes people will come to us and just say “I booked the vacation and I’m going to pay for it over the next couple months,” and so what we typically recommend is let’s try to first figure out how much are you going to spend in the year on vacation and then once we know that are we able to back up into a monthly savings amount so that we can just automate savings into a high yield savings account.

So we’re putting $300 into the high yield savings account every month that’s earning us 4% to 5% and then when that vacation comes up later in the year, I can just pull that money out and I know it’s taken care of. Or even backing into if I have a big trip this year I’m traveling internationally, how much do I think that’s going to cost? Looking at lodging, airfare, transportation, food and then maybe even adding an extra 1 to 2 thousand on top of that just to give you peace of mind. And then backing into that monthly savings number and saving money that way. And then also it’s powerful if you don’t have travel planned or trip planned still saving so that when it does come up you know the money’s there and you can go guilt-free.

If you don’t want to save every month for travel maybe it’s just: I know all my other goals have been taken care of through monthly savings and when I get a lump sum, maybe through a bonus or other form of lump sums, you just throw that into a travel bucket and you know the money’s there and that it can be taken care of.”

Buying a home doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your retirement goals! With PMI becoming more affordable and various loan options available, you might not need to put 20% down. Talk to a financial advisor to find the best balance for your savings goals.

“When it comes to saving for a home, it can be a very overwhelming and daunting conversation to have and a lot of times you’re thinking, ‘How much do I really need to save for my down payment for a home?’ Typically, you’ve heard save 20% for a down payment on a home. A lot of times, this is directly related to avoiding PMI insurance, which is an additional insurance that banks want to charge you when you don’t have 20% of equity in your home. But, what this can do is actually lead you to maybe giving up some of the retirement goals that you could be saving for as well as your home down payment goals.

Nowadays lenders are now really making sure that borrowers are vetted with making sure that you’ve had two years of consistent income, that you have a good debt to income ratio. Because of this, the PMI insurance has actually really come down and become more affordable than it used to be. So it could be that saving 20% doesn’t necessarily make sense for you and that you could get into a home with maybe 15%, 10%, 5%. There’s actually conventional loans that you only need 3% down. There’s a lot of government loans and programs where you don’t have to have the traditional 20% down payment so it’s really important to have a plan to be talking to a financial advisor in order to see what is the best down payment for you it can really depend on cash flow, long-term savings goals, all these different things.

You don’t have to put retirement on the side or the back burner in order to get into your dream home. Having these conversations with a financial advisor could really help you determine the best balance between coming up with a home down payment and saving for your short-term and long-term goals.”

From a young age, it’s all about studying hard, getting good grades, and landing a great job. But once you’re in the workforce, there’s not one right answer for how to handle your money. Schedule a meeting with Commas to let us guide through achieving your goals.

“My entire life started with, in school, focus on doing the things you need to do: studying and and getting good grades so that eventually you could get into a good college and get scholarships. And then in college, it’s continue to do the same things in order to get a good job so that you can pursue what you’re interested in but also make some money. Then it it kind of stops and and you’re thrown out into the world and you have a job and and you’re accumulating money but so many people don’t have a next step.

It’s crazy because you’ve spent all of that time leading up to getting this job and and getting a paycheck and then it’s kind of an open world on on what you do with it. Everybody’s experience with money is different and some people are natural savers and some people like to spend more and you can make mistakes to the extremes in either direction but financial security is about helping people find that balance of enjoying what they have next but saving prudently so that you can live the same type of lifestyle later.

It it doesn’t come natural, and there’s all this attention on the front end of studying, getting good grades, and getting a good job but there’s so much less attention on on the back end of that and that’s that’s where we step in.”