Log In
Let's Talk

Category: Goal setting

You’ve Got the Job, Now What?

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

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.”

Sharing a Vision with Your Partner

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

Shared visions lead to shared successes. When you work together with your partner towards a common vision, achieving your dreams becomes quicker and easier.

“I think one of the keys to having a successful financial partnership with your spouse is to have a shared vision. Often times, I’ll work with a couple and each member of the couple might have very different visions for how they want to use their family’s resources. When you have competing objectives you end up going in opposite directions but if you can work together you really see that you can achieve your financial goals faster and achieve the life that you want to live quicker.”

What Do You Need to Know About RSUs?

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

There are a lot of things to understand about Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). Hear from Commas advisor Katelyn on what they are and the 3 key dates associated with RSUs.

“There’s a lot of things to understand and know about restricted stock units or RSUs but here’s some of the highlights. RSUs are awards of company stock, given to attain and to attract key employees. These can be used instead of cash bonuses or alongside of cash bonuses as a way to compensate their employees as part of the entire compensation package. There are three key dates associated with RSUs: the grant date, the vesting period, and the vesting date.

The grant date is the day that your company grants you shares of the RSUs. This doesn’t mean that you necessarily have that company’s stock yet, but they’ve given you your award and told you how many shares to an expect and over what period of time. Then comes into play the vesting period every company is different, but this is the amount of time that must pass before you actually get those shares. This could be a cliff vesting schedule or it could be gradual vesting schedule but it’s going to vary from company to company. The vesting date is when you become an owner of those shares so they’re no longer RSUs, but actual shares of the company and at this time you can sell them or hold them or do whatever you like. There’s a lot more to know and understand about RSUs, especially around the taxation of them so if you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out to your advisor”

What to Do With Leftover 529 Funds

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

The passing of Secure Act 2.0 in 2024 introduces a huge benefit for 529 account holders. You can now use those funds to make Roth IRA contributions. This means leftover dollars from education savings can now be redirected towards retirement, offering a smart head start for beneficiaries.

“Since the passing of Secure Act 2.0, there is a new law as of 2024 that anybody with a 529 account can actually then use those funds to make Roth IRA contributions. Now there are definitely some complexities and things that are in place that you want to talk to your financial advisor about before enacting this on your own. But big picture what can happen is you’ve been saving into a 529 all these years, you’ve gone through your education and now there’s leftover dollars.

Typically what would happen happen is you can either roll those over to a new beneficiary or keep it for legacy planning or maybe you just take the distribution and a 10% tax penalty on those funds that aren’t used for education expenses. Well now you have the opportunity to make Roth IRA contributions from the 529 funds. As long as the account has been opened for 15 years, you can then make up to the IRS yearly limit of Roth IRA contributions for the beneficiary. This can be a great tool for parents or grandparents or even kids who have leftover funds. You can start funding Roth IRAs for your beneficiaries that aren’t going to be using 529 funds for education and give them a great head start to retirement saving.”

Comparing Job Offers

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

Job offers are more than just numbers on a paycheck 💼💰 It’s important to evaluate all the perks and benefits, from equity compensation to work-life balance. Find what matters most to you and let it guide your decision-making process.

“One of the things we help clients a lot with is evaluating new job offers. It’s a lot to take in and it’s more than just the salary being offered. To me, it’s is there potential for bonus? Is there potential for future raises? Are you being offered equity compensation through the company’s stock? What is the life insurance, health insurance, disability? What is the retirement plan and what kind of match am I getting? And then also just other benefits or other small perks like gym memberships or tuition reimbursement and things like that can really add up.

And even more than just looking at the financials of it, it can be what benefits are offered to me? How much PTO am I going to get? What’s the work life balance for me? Am I going to be happy in this new role? Do I have the opportunity to work virtual and be in office and have flexibility there? So I think you can’t really put a financial number to those, but maybe just looking and evaluating what’s important to me, which company is offering that and if I was to put a value on that what would that number be? And then once you’re able to look at all the benefits offered you can kind of categorize what’s important, what’s the total of all that and help you make a decision that way”

Mega Backdoor Roths

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

The mega backdoor Roth strategy is a great option for high earners at a company that allows After-tax 401(k) contributions. Hear from Commas advisor Katelyn to learn why this may be the right choice for you.

“When you think about saving into a 401(k) plan, you traditionally think of making pre-tax or Roth contributions. But there’s another category called After-tax contributions and, in certain company 401(K) plans, After-tax contributions allow you to save above that limit and then we can convert those dollars into Roth. Roth is one of our favorite types of retirement accounts and so the more dollars we can get in there the better.

Examples of 401k companies that do this would be Google, Netflix, or Microsoft but it’s not exclusive to those large companies. It’s really important to look in your 401k plan document to see if these types of contributions are offered. Granted, we want to make sure that we’re prioritizing short-term goals and long-term goals, but if you have the capability to save more into retirement this is a great option for you.”

The Power of Compound Interest

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

“The best time to start saving and investing is yesterday, the second-best time is today.”

The true trick to taking advantage of compounding interest is to start early and give your funds time to compound and grow.

“It’s really important to start saving and investing as early as you can. Certainly, you want to make sure you’ve got the basics covered. You want to have enough money in the bank in case of emergency and some of the basics like that. But once we start to talk about saving for various goals, it’s really important to start that as soon as possible.

One of the investing quotes that you’ve probably heard before is ‘the best time to start saving investing is yesterday, the second-best time is today,’ and that’s absolutely true because of compound interest. Every dollar you earn today snowballs and becomes a lot more dollars in the future so even adding one year, five years today, starting a little bit earlier, can make a huge difference 15, 20, 30 years down the road. Being invested for a long period of time is the number one thing you can do to build wealth.”

Investing Based on Your Goals

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

Don’t lose sight of your financial goals! 📈 Hear from Commas portfolio manager Conor on the importance of understanding why you’re investing before diving into investment strategies.

“If you’re aiming to maximize your return over any shorter time period, you may be losing sight of why you’re investing those funds in the first place. For example, if you know you need to buy a car in the next three years because maybe your car is getting old and it’s time for an upgrade, if you invest those funds fully in the stock market, you’re taking on outsized risks. So much so that one year later if your car breaks down and you need to buy one; maybe the 10 grand you set aside is now 7 grand or 5 grand and you have to change the kind of car that that you’re looking to buy. That would be a difficult investment decision and really mistake to make because you forgot to tie the reason you’re investing with your portfolio. So, investing according to your goals is really the very first step you need to make before you decide exactly what strategy you’re going to enact.”

Why Hire a Financial Advisor?

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

Start the new year with financial clarity and a fresh perspective! Consider the value of a financial advisor – someone unbiased to help you cut through the noise and get organized.

“I think there’s a lot of value in a financial advisor. One is just to get organized and to have an unbiased person who can speak truth into your financial life. So many clients will come and start to work with us, and they’ve gotten so lost in the weeds and they’ve been so close to their own situation for so many years, that it’s hard to step back and say let’s take a look at actually what’s going on here and how can we sort through the noise in order to make progress towards your financial goals.”

What Does Building Wealth Mean to You?

Posted on by Kelsie Joos

🌟 What does building wealth mean to you? For many, it’s not just about money sitting in a savings account. It’s about retiring comfortably, securing your children’s future, or achieving various life goals.

At Commas, we aim to understand your vision of wealth and craft a personalized plan. Let’s redefine wealth together!

“A lot of our clients say that they want to build wealth and typically my follow-up question to that is: What does that mean to you? Because usually, it’s not just accumulating a bunch of money in a savings account somewhere that that just sits there. It might mean saving enough money to retire comfortably someday or having enough money that your children are taken care of and may inherit something one day. There’s a million different answers.

One thing that working with an advisor can help with and I think that Commas does really well, is finding out what does building wealth mean to you. What is all this money for? Why are we having these conversations in the first place? And so getting a clear understanding of those things can help us come up with a good plan.”