Inside The Plan

Back to School with Your 401(k)

In this episode of Inside the Plan with the 401(k) Brothers, Bill Bush and Andy Bush, advisors at Horizon Financial Group, talk about the ways to construct a plan that works for you and also discusses about the 5 points that participants need to follow during financial planning.

 

Episode Highlights:

  • 1.48 – Andy says that people during summer go on a vacation and things they usually do get less focused and once school gets back in, they kind of get back into the routine.
  • 3.05 – According to him, we need to look out in the future a little bit and need to ask things like, what it looks like there, are we doing okay, are we on the right track, and what are we doing?
  • 4.13 – Bill shares that point number one in our piece is online learning. All plans mostly have some sort of online portal that keep up participants with their account.
  • 5.23 – He states that one of the first things we asked them is, “Hey, have you set-up your access online?”
  • 7.09 – Andy highlights, when we get back to routine, what we ask ourselves as a retirement plan participant is that what we need to be doing and learning for this semester.
  • 8.52 – Andy refers to the book - “The Psychology of Money”, in which Morgan House states that behaviour and making good behavioural decisions is much more to your savings rate is much more important than actual return rate of return.
  • 10.27 – He shares that, no matter what the match is in our plan that we do know it, and that we are aware that there is a way to maximize that now.
  • 12.23 – Bill mentions that the summary plan description or the plan description, they are pretty brief but it does outline four or five different main point’s features.
  • 13.24 – As per Andy, if we want to do more, we need to shoot for the moon in a sense that we've got a balance, living in here and now. 
  • 14.35 – Bill shares, we can bump-up our contribution whatever works for us or whatever works in the constructs of our plan.

 

3 Key Points

  1. Things we need to do is, first to choose an online learning plan; second use the tools that are out there; third max, the match; fourth move-up a grade and final point is to seek out a tutor.
  2. We can't control the market returns, regulations, law changes, taxation and all that, but we can at least have an idea of how much will be our nest egg be in 10, 20 or 30 years, it’s a very valuable viewpoint and gives us an awareness.
  3. We all need to know how the employer is contributing to the plan, if there's a way to maximise on the case that we have a match, do that.

 

Tweetable Quotes

  • “Two kids in college so, I say that I'm a part time empty nester” – Andy Bush
  • ‘But I find that the beginning of school and the beginning of the New Year are typically at times when folks really kind of open their eyes to their situation.” – Bill Bush
  • “What you really want to find out is that what the impact is going to be of what your actions are now.” – Bill Bush
  • “Whether you're going to college or you're in high school, or even below is usually a teacher is going to tell you Hey! Class this is what we're going to be learning this semester.” – Andy Bush
  • “And this example could impact you pretty well especially if you're fairly young.” – Bill Bush
  • “The employer giving every person 3% whether they put any other money in or not. And what I would tell you is that if you're not putting your own money in that 3% is not going to be enough, definitely not going to be enough.”- Andy Bush
  • “Hey, when my kid when my child moves-up a grade, I'm going to put more money in, you know, right, whatever works for you in whatever works in the constructs of your plan and what it's allowed to definitely look into that.” – Bill Bush

 

Resources Mentioned:

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