Financial Planning No-Brainers
As our clients know, there are so many complicated details and strategies to figure out when building a comprehensive financial plan. There’s how much tax you owe and whether to make estimated payments, there are big decisions around whether it makes sense to buy or rent your home, what the right investment allocation is to reach your goals, and about fifty other important decisions where a mistake has big financial consequences. We’re not talking about any of that heavy stuff today. Nope! Instead, we’re talking about the easy financial planning moves almost every person should make to optimize their financial lives and protect themselves from the unexpected. These are the easy ones, the gimmies, the “no-brainers.”
We define a “no-brainer” as:
Easy to handle and should take less than 30 minutes to complete
It will only help you and there is very little downside
Not expensive
We covered all of these in-depth in a recent webinar. Watch below!
Financial Planning No Brainers
Get a fire and waterproof safe to store passports, birth certificates, social security cards, and other hard to replace documents. Here’s a $60 one.
Monitor your credit score through a free tool like Credit Karma.
Get a secure digital password storage system like Lastpass.
Automate your savings by contributing to your employer’s 401(k).
Get pet insurance if you have a furry friend.
Take advantage of low interest rates by refinancing a mortgage or student loan.
Set up a cash emergency fund with 3-6 months of living expenses in a high yield savings account.
Get umbrella insurance if you have taxable net worth above $2,000,000.
Contribute to a Roth IRA if your income is within the limits (about $120,000 for an individual).
Pay your darn taxes on time and request an extension to file the return if you need more time.
Add beneficiaries to retirement accounts.
Get term life insurance if you have children, spouses or parents that depend on your income.
Get a basic estate plan in place that includes a will, power of attorney, and healthcare proxy.
Ask for a raise and/or negotiate your salary. Watch this webinar.
If you have any freelance income you must track your expenses. Get a separate bank account, get a bookkeeper, pay quarterly estimates, determine if an S-corp makes sense for your business, and read this blog post.
Get renter’s insurance. Itemize expensive items like musical instruments and laptops. It covers things like stolen bikes, instruments, and laptops...AMAZING. Lemonade is easy to use.
Keep less than 5% of your investable net worth (after you’ve set aside your cash emergency fund) in alternatives like individual stocks, gold, Bitcoin, etc. Game Stop is fun, Game Stop is for play, Game Stop is not a plan.