I'll Take A Roth IRA With That Retirement Plan

I do a lot of 1-on-1 meetings with employees of my corporate clients.  The meetings tend to be clumped after employee education sessions as part of the 401k or 403b plan.  I always make sure that any employee who wants to have a private conversation with me about their situation has my contact information and we can schedule either a phone or in person consultation.
 
Yesterday I had a meeting with a young lady (24 years old is young to me) who works for one of my retirement plan clients.  She asked to meet to get an opinion that was not a friend’s or family member’s on whether or not what she was doing was the right thing.   She was a very impressive woman, in her first job out of college, and had done her homework on the retirement plan, investments, and savings options outside the plan.
 
As we were getting into her situation, it occurred to me that many individuals would benefit from the work she has done.  First, she noted that many of the free planning tools on the web are too simplistic to account for life as we live it.  How perceptive!  Even at 24 years old she realized that while some of these tools can provide some direction, they are not a map.  On-line tools are generally just calculators and none of us are math problems to be solved.
 
Secondly, she realized the value of saving both before and after tax. She had calculated what she needed to save in the corporate plan to maximize the company match, and then all additional dollars she is putting into a Roth IRA.  She has an auto-sweep on her checking account to automatically take $500 per month out of her checking and put into her Roth IRA.  What genius!  We discussed how having both before tax and after-tax buckets of money in her retirement years will be extremely beneficial.  She noted that many of her peers don’t even know that they can contribute to both a company retirement plan and a Roth IRA.  It’s true that there are income thresholds that phase out the ability to do this, but for 2020 that threshold is not met until her income hits $124,000, and she is well below that.
 
After we got a clear picture of her retirement savings strategy, we discussed the need for an emergency fund and only then did we discuss the merits of whether or not she should try to pay down her mortgage.
 
Suffice to say that she is a remarkable young lady who will clearly be in a great position once she reaches retirement age…in 41 years!  But what struck me most about her was how poised, confident, and in control she was after our meeting.  I couldn’t help but think what an asset she must be to her employer/my client.  
 
As a financial advisor, some days are better than others, but yesterday was pretty good, and inspired me to continue helping other employees of my clients to get the financial confidence she has.  I would love to speak with you about how we might work on this together.
 
Please give me a call!

​Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy