You Don’t Need a Financial Advisor - Expert Edition Episode 58
Today, I'm super excited to share three awesome tips to help you grow your money without needing a financial advisor. First, if you've ever had a job with a retirement plan like a 401k, it's important to move your money with you when you leave. I'll show you a cool free service called Capitalize that makes it super easy. Next, we'll talk about checking your current job's retirement plan to make sure it's invested in a smart way. And lastly, if you have student loans, there's a special chance right now to get some of that loan forgiven, but you've got to act fast! I've got all the details and links to help you out.
Resources Mentioned:
Capitalize: capitalize.sjv.io/NKvn1V
Student Loan Planner: https://studentloanplanner6c01f.referralrock.com/l/NASEEMABRI71/
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] What's up, what's up, my financially intentional people. Happy Tuesday for you guys listening when the show airs. But I wanted to come to you to talk to you about what most people always ask me about especially if they're starting a new job, if they think they're coming into money or they just think that they're not in a good position to manage their finances.
Most people are like, where can I find? Find a good financial advisor and chances are 99 percent of the time you don't need a financial advisor to really make a big impact on your wealth building journey. You can do a lot of this stuff independently. So I'm going to share with you
three things that you can do today that are really, really, really going to impact your finances substantially without having to use a financial advisor. And these are things that you can implement right away. Really easy. [00:01:00] First things first a lot of my audience is older thirties, forties, and so Even if you're in your 20s, you probably work somewhere where you've had a 401k or some kind of retirement account But you don't necessarily know how much is in there But every time you leave a job you need to take your retirement funds with you And know you need to do what's called a rollover in you don't roll those things over into your new job.
What you need to do is roll them over into your own IRA. So you're going to go to a discount brokerage like a Fidelity or Vanguard. I really like Fidelity nowadays for a number of reasons, but go to a Fidelity, you go and you open a traditional IRA. If you have a traditional 401k or 403b, And you roll those things over now.
It sounds overwhelming, right? However, there is a free service that does this for you [00:02:00] and it's called capitalize and I will leave the links in the show notes to capitalize But let me just break down what capitalize does Capitalize is a free concierge platform that finds and transfers your old retirement accounts to your individual retirement account of your choice, okay?
They make sure your money moves the best place for you. They manage the entire rollover process from start to finish to help you track and adjust your plan for life. So it's a no stress, no hassle way to combine and track your retirement accounts into your own IRA. So you can maximize your savings.
So it lets you trade the annoying paperwork and headaches for a simple online process with your own rollover concierge. And again, this is all free. They even help you compare IRAs. Find the best place for your money. So like I was saying earlier to open your own IRA, you can just [00:03:00] go through capitalize and they will do that for you.
I know it's usually a hassle, but let me just break down some statistics that you're probably leaving so much money on the table. If you have money in an old 401k. So the number of forgotten are left behind 401k has increased to 29, 000, 000 by over 20 percent since 2021. And it's driven because in this last couple of years people have been switching jobs and there's been layoffs.
So people have been leaving their 401ks behind. And sometimes a lot of these accounts are mismanaged but they are a large drag on our collective savings. Leaving behind a 401k. Okay, can potentially cost an individual say you only had 55, 000 in a forgotten 401k that. Overtime causes you to lose 700, [00:04:00] 000 in foregone retirement saving over 30 years.
Okay. So two or three Americans don't know what they're paying in 401k fees. So if you're leaving your 401k at another job, chances are, because you are not a current employee at that place, they are charging you fees. Okay. Of those people that actually know how much fees like they're getting charged a half a point on their assets Okay, and if you actually took those funds out you can retire four years earlier Just by reducing those fees.
So it's crazy okay. So highly recommend today. If you have retirement accounts anywhere, I don't care if it was a summer job, when you are internship, when you're in college or something, you had some benefits.
Make sure you take that money with you. It all needs to sit collectively in one account [00:05:00] your own ira The process is called a rollover ira, even though it goes under one account. So I Highly recommend you do that the link to capitalize will be in the show notes Okay that so that's number one get the process to start rolling over your 401k, 403b to day and use capitalized to do it. You can get that process started. As soon as you finish listening to this podcast, links are in the show notes. Okay, next thing that we need to do to maximize our finances are figure out where our 401ks and 403bs are held.
If we're currently working somewhere who is the administrator of your 401k or your 403b? For example, at one of my jobs, Fidelity manages it. I've had Vanguard manage it. At another place, I have a, an account with Valic. So find out who administers your 401k. Then the next thing I want you to do is [00:06:00] get the number or a, get a contact number where you can call in there and ask questions like.
When I first started figuring out how to invest, I used to call these numbers and I, I like to do it for fun. I used to call customer support at Fidelity and Vanguard and just ask questions and they won't give you investment advice, but they have so much knowledge and they are so nice to help you.
But what I want you specifically to ask. Is in your particular retirement account, do you have access to low cost index funds? Now, I'm a hell of a believer in hell, a simple investing. And I index fund and forget it. So a lot of times we don't know, even if our money is invested in these accounts, so the money comes out of your check every month, it goes into the retirement accounts.
Some of it, it just sits in a glorified bank account and it's a glorified savings account is not even invested. So number one, you need to ask, is my money being invested? [00:07:00] And then the second question you need to ask is, what is it being invested in? And they can break down and show you what is being invested in And if there's say something like a low cost index fund in there, that's great The next thing you can ask is do I have access to a low cost index fund?
And most 401ks now require that you have access to at least one low cost index fund And then if they say yes, you say great can we move the majority of my money into there and I usually do a 90 10 split You Or a hundred percent into low cost index funds, and then 10 percent into a bond fund.
But again, it's not investment advice. This is what I do, but you can ask them if they have a low cost index fund and then help you move your money in that's in your account over to those it's into a low cost index fund, and then in the future going forward, continue to invest in that so that in itself can save you hundreds of [00:08:00] thousands of dollars, especially.
If your money is in a retirement account and it's not being invested and you would be surprised How many people's retirement accounts is set up where the money is taken out of your check? And then it goes into this account which is meant to be a holding account just until those funds are invested But oftentimes people don't pick their investments.
And so the money just sits there I had a co worker that had hundreds of thousands of dollars in this account and she had been working for this hospital For years and she never knew that she was supposed to invest it. So believe me it happens so So that is the 2nd thing that you need to do right now without a financial advisor that you can do on your own to maximize your wealth building.
So you're gonna call and figure out who administers your 401k, 403b ask them what your money is invested in, ask them if they have a low cost index fund option, and then make sure that going forward, you are heavily invested in that. All right, so that's number two [00:09:00] number three If you have a student loans, you have to take action before April 30th.
So this is something that you can do totally on your own. You do not need to have investment advisor. To do this for you, okay, so millions of borrowers who have student loans could see their student loan balance wiped away completely. Okay. There is an income driven replay repayment waiver. That is a 1 time account adjustment that was implemented by the Biden administration and it's a really big deal.
Anytime you spent in repayment, so any of the time you spent in repayment and or. Forbearance or deferment can now be counting towards a 10 year public service loan forgiveness or 20 to 25 year forgiveness plan in order to qualify. You need to consolidate your loans by. Bro [00:10:00] 30th. So this is super time sensitive.
You can do this on your own, but if you want to work with somebody, I highly 100 percent recommend student loan planner. Okay. You can discuss your situation with Professional certified financial planner through student loan planner if you want to go that route you this again You don't need a financial advisor.
You don't need a financial planner to do this but if you do this is a one time fee for student loan planner and i'm gonna put a link In the show notes where you can get 100 percent off on one consultation to work with student loan planner to consolidate your loan So you can qualify for this forgiveness by april 30th again You can do this on your own But if you want to work with a financial planner that is available to you So I did want to offer you that option but all of this stuff you can do without a financial planner again, so number three [00:11:00] Is make sure you consolidate your student loans by April 30th, and this can totally wipe out your student loan planner.
So let me run through those things again. Number 1, roll over all your past 401ks or 403bs number 2. Figure out who is the administrator of your current 401k or 403b and make sure most of your money is invested in a low cost index fund. Number 3, make sure you are taking advantage of this income driven repayment, one time adjustment that is put out by the Biden administration that is going to expedite.
Fire by April 30th. And if you need help doing that, then you can reach out to a certified financial advisor, but all this stuff you can do on your own. Okay. So everybody always asks me, where do I get started? How do I find our financial planner? If you do these things, okay. You will be 90 percent ahead of [00:12:00] your peers as far as wealth building.
So take action today. These are things that you can do in less than an hour combined. So I implore you to do this as soon as possible. And if you have any questions, slide in my DMS. I'm always happy to answer your questions, but I wish you all the best. And again, you can get started on your wealth building journey today.
All right. On your own you can do it. It's not hard. Okay. All right. Best wishes you guys
Hey there I’m Naseema
My dream is for everyone to know that financial independence is attainable with a little intentionality. Learn how I can help you finally break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.
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