The Ultimate Guide to Becoming an Employer Match Millionaire (FREE MONEY)

Transcript:

On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, the Ultimate Guide to Becoming an Employer Match Millionaire.

Ooh, what's up everybody? And welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of Master money.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're gonna be giving you the ultimate guide to becoming an employer Match. Millionaire. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join that Master Money newsletter by going to master money.co/newsletter.

And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now, today we're gonna be diving into the.

Ultimate guide to your employer match. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you a bunch of different ways to get free money when it comes to your employer and your employer match. For a lot of people out there, they think that a nine to five job is not a great way to build wealth. I completely disagree.

In fact, I think there's a number of different great ways to build wealth with your nine to five job now. If you know how to utilize some of the things that they offer you. So at the top of the show, we're gonna talk through your employer match. We're gonna talk through how powerful it is, and I'm gonna show you how it can actually make you a millionaire if you take action on that employer match.

Then in the second half of the show, I'm gonna show you just a couple of. Additional benefits and ways that you can get free money with your employer depending on what they offer. And they may have some of these offerings and you have no idea that they are actually offering some of these things. And so I think it's really, really important for a lot of people to understand just what are some of these quick things that I need to note when it comes to making sure I get that free money?

Because that is what your employer match is. Now, if your employer offers that 401k match, or maybe it's a Roth 401k match. Then you need to make sure that you are taking advantage of it. Why? Because it's free money and free is my favorite number. I don't know about you, but I love having free money. If I told you I'm gonna give you $100 and in return you're gonna get back $200, if you just hand me $100, what would you say?

If you said no, you would be absolutely crazy. And that's literally what your employer is doing when they offer you an employer. Match. So in this guide, we're gonna walk you through everything that you need to know about your employer match. We're actually do a deep dive on employer matches and what it is, how it works, and how to take full, full advantage of it, uh, here up front.

So if that's something you're into, you love building wealth, you want to actually take advantage of free money, let's get into it. So what is an employer match? That's the first thing. If you don't know what it is, this is when your company contributes money to your 401k. Sometimes it's other accounts as well, or your retirement account based on how much you contribute.

Okay? So it is like a bonus for saving for your future. So if your employer offers a 100% match on the first 5% that you put into your 401k and you make $60,000 per year, they'll contribute $3,000 per year. If you contribute $3,000 per year. Now, let me just say something real quick, just look at that one simple example.

If you make 60 grand a year and they will match you up to 5%, my first employer, they match me up to 5%. And so if they'll match you up to 5%, you can literally get $3,000 per year completely free by just investing in your future. By literally just investing in your future. You never see the money. It never has to hit your account.

In fact, you don't even pay taxes on those dollars that you put in there. So there's tax advantages to it in addition to you also getting free money. Now, this my friends, is a double whammy. It is absolutely amazing how powerful this can be over. Time that is literally just free money for investing in yourself.

So here is why it is so powerful. First is you may get an instant 100% rate of return on your contributions when you are fully matched. Now, some matches are partial. Sometimes they'll give you 75%. Sometimes they'll give you 50%. Sometimes they may give you. 25%, but it is still free money just for contributing your dollars.

And over time you can see how powerful this can be. I've shown you in past episodes that if you just tweak something a hundred dollars every single month, how much more you will have by the time you retire over the course of 30 years. Your 401k match is no different. This is forced savings that allows you to double your savings power just by taking advantage of it.

So if you have a 100% 401k match, there is no if, ands, or buts about it. You need to be doing this. You need to do this before you pay off debt. You need to do this before you start investing in something else. You need to do this in every single financial scenario that I can think of that needs to be done.

Secondarily, there are no taxes owed when you have a 401k match specifically for the 401k until you withdraw the money in something like a traditional 401k. So this, my friends, is so incredibly powerful because A, you're contributing to your financial future. B, you are getting that possible 100% rate of return.

And C, you're not paying taxes on the dollars that you are actually contributing to this account upfront. So in this current tax year, when you contribute, let's just keep using that same example, $3,000 this year, you will not get taxed on that $3,000. That my friends is another powerful tool. Third is compound interest.

So once you get those dollars into your 401k, you start to invest those dollars over time. That's not just going to be the end of it. Your money is going to compound over time. It's gonna grow at a specific rate of return, depending on what you invest in. A lot of 4 0 1 Ks are index funds. There's target day retirement funds, there's mutual funds in there, but you have to go in there and elect your investments.

And so making sure that you do that is really, really important as we go through this. So let's talk about some of the common, uh, employer matches that are out there. One, is there something called a dollar for dollar match? So an example of the dollar for dollar match is the first example we gave, but another one is a hundred percent match on the first 4% that you contribute.

That is a very common match for a lot of people. 3, 4, 5, and 6% are the ranges I've seen a lot of people have, but I've also heard of much higher ranges as well, which you have no idea how amazing of a benefit that is. So in this scenario. If you put in 4% and it is a hundred percent match on the first 4% that you contribute, if you put in 4%, they put in another 4%.

Now secondarily, another match that is out there is the partial match. So say for example, you get a 50% match on the first 6%, so if you put in 6%, then they will contribute. 3%. So literally it is still free money for you investing for your future. You put in 6% of your income, they put in the next three, and that will allow you to have 9% invested only.

You are only putting in 6%. You're literally getting a 50% rate of return just by putting your money into the 401k. Third is a tiered match, so tiered matches are becoming more common as well. Uh, where. It is a hundred percent match, for example, on the first 3%, a 50% on the next two, and then if you contribute 5%, that means they would contribute 4%.

This is just a tricky way for them not to match as much as they typically would. Uh, but this is another great benefit. It is still well worth it, even if there's a tiered match to figure out how much exactly. They are going to be matching you. So if you're thinking about this and you are asking yourself, well, I don't know how much they match, well, we're gonna tell you exactly what to do and how to maximize your match next.

Alright, so how to maximize your match. Step one is I want you to go to HR and I want you to check your benefits package. And what you're looking for is a couple of different things. One is you wanna know the percentage. Of your salary that they will match. If you don't know this number, it is a very important number to know.

It is the first question I would ask hr. Second, is there a cap or limit on their matching? And third, what is the vesting schedule? Well, we're gonna talk a little bit more about vesting here in a second, but you may have heard that term in the past. And a lot of times people will hear that term for their 401k.

Sometimes they'll hear it for a pension. Sometimes you will hear it for your epps. Sometimes there's all these different things that you could hear it for. Uh, we're gonna talk through that here right after this. Step two is I want you to contribute enough to get the full match. So if you wanna maximize your match, you wanna contribute enough to get the full entire match that is vested.

Okay? This is really, really important. If they give you a 100% return on a 5% match, and you only put 2% in, you are literally leaving thousands of dollars in the table. Literally. And in fact, if you compound this over the course of 30 years, this is a million dollar decision. Your employer match if you have time, is a million dollar decision.

Do not fall short on this just because you want to get some more Uber Eats or just 'cause you want to go out and have a couple of extra target runs. Making sure that you get that full 401k match should be the highest priority, especially if it is a 100% rate of return, so that it means you aren't missing out on free money.

So step one again, understanding. Find out your match formula. Step two is to contribute enough to get the full match. Step three is set it and forget it once you set this up. The beautiful thing about this is you don't have to think about it ever again. You just continue to make sure that you are getting the match every single year.

This is automatically gonna happen. You're not even going to remember that that money was there and it is going to grow over time. Do you know how many people. I have told to just set this up. Just do this alone. Okay. And they will start it at their employer and their workplace. Before this podcast began, I had friends who I would tell, Hey, make sure you at least get that employer match.

I know you don't know a ton about investing. I'll teach you over time, but let me just tell you, get your employer match. What's my employer match? I explain it to them and they just do it. Okay? So they just start to do it and get their employer match and they look 10 years later 'cause they barely look at their investments anyway, and 10 years later they look and they go.

Holy cow. I have 40, 50, 60, a hundred thousand dollars in my account just because I got my employer match. And I didn't even miss that money. I never saw it because when you sign up for your employer, if you get the employer match right away, you're not even gonna notice the difference. Literally won't notice the difference because you're just gonna get used to that money getting taken out.

This is automating your Money 1 0 1. This is the easiest way to automate your money, is just to elect to get your employer match. Now, most plans let you choose a percentage of your income. Uh, start at least with enough to get that full match. Always, always, always, when you're contributing to your 401k, start with at least enough to get your 401k match.

Now, a lot of you may have a vesting schedule within your 401k. Some of you may not. Some of you might. My first employer. Did not have a vesting schedule with their 401k. We did have a vesting schedule if you wanted to buy employee stock. And so understanding what a vesting schedule is is really, really important.

So vesting is how much of your employer's contributions you actually own over time. So immediate vesting, V-E-S-T-I-N-G is what I'm saying here. You own a hundred percent of employer contributions. Right away. So that is the number one thing is immediate vesting. Secondly is graded investing, meaning you earn a portion each and every single year.

So this is what I saw with our employee stock purchase plan is if you bought company stock, or they would give you company stock a certain percentage, and you would get vested based on how long you were there. So say for example, you were there for one year, then they would vest it a certain portion. So it'd be about 20% of that amount for the first year.

If you were here for two years, you're gonna get 20. 40% of that amount, three years, 64 years. 85 years, a hundred percent. And so this can also work with your 401k match. Let's say for example, they'll match a hundred percent, but it gets vested over the course of the next five years. So in year one, they'll match a hundred percent.

It's gonna go into your 401k, but you only get to keep 20% of that in the first year. If you leave after this year, only 20% of it goes with you. The other 80% they're gonna keep, okay, year two. 40% your 360, something like that. So sometimes vesting schedules are two years, sometimes they're five years, sometimes they're really bad and they're 10 years.

If it's a 10 year vesting schedule, I would probably reconsider just my, some of my structures there. Uh, but I would really think about that. And then there's cliff vesting. So Cliff vesting is the third one. Uh, and that is you get 0% until a certain year, and then a hundred percent. So for example, if you stay here for three years, you're gonna get a hundred percent if your 401k match.

Now some people, and it's amazing how the psychology works with this, some people will literally not leave a job that will not give them any additional benefits just because they're waiting for their 401k two vest that my friends is usually not always the best choice. Uh, you gotta run the numbers on that, but for a lot of different scenarios, you gotta look the vesting schedule, understand that vesting schedule 'cause you do not want it to chain you to a job that you don't like.

So making sure you know what is going on there is gonna be super. Super important. Now, even if you're paying off loans or struggling to save, it is really hard to beat a 100% rate of guaranteed rate of return, which is why we want you to always do this first. Now, in Master Money Academy, which we are building out right now, you're gonna see, we're gonna give you an exact to order of exactly what to do with your money, and it's gonna start from how to open your accounts correctly.

Then we're gonna go into how to make sure that you were saving properly in buckets. Then we're gonna make sure that we show you which credit cards to open so you have the proper spending plan in place. We're gonna build out your spending plan. We're gonna. Build out your insurances. We're gonna build out everything up in front ahead of time, but the first thing we want you to do when you start to take these big, big action steps is making sure that you are taking action on that 401k match.

This is the most powerful thing you could do that is so easy. It's small amounts of money that are gonna grow over time to vary large amounts of money, contributing enough to get the match. And then worry about the rest. If you're in credit card debt, contributing enough to get the match and then start paying off that credit card debt if you get a hundred percent return.

Let me show you the long-term impact here, because I think this is really important for a lot of people to understand. Let's go back to that. You make $60,000 per year. 'cause I want people to know, even if you have a modest salary, if you make $60,000 per year and your employer matches 5% and you contribute 5%, here is what is going to happen.

Okay? It is so amazing what could happen even with small amounts of money. So if you contribute $3,000 per year, so 60,000 per year, 5% of that is $3,000 per year, and your employer's gonna match that with an additional $3,000 per year. That means your total annual amount that you were investing is at $6,000.

Let's just say you got a 10% rate of return. Where'd you get 10% from? Well, if you look at the historic averages of yes and P 500 over the course of the last few decades, you can see it gets a 10% rate of return. That's where we get that number from. Okay, just look at the historic data. Okay. If you got a 10% annual growth rate over the course of 30 years, with that $60,000 per year salary and a 5% match, you would have $1,130,000 in your 401k.

If you did nothing else, just that one habit, you'd have $1,130,000 every single year. Now I'm gonna say it one more time for the people in the back, 'cause I want you to understand how powerful this is. If you made $60,000 per year. And your employer gave you a 5% match, okay? If they gave you a 5% match and you put in 5% because you wanted to get that match, so you put in 5%, which is $3,000 per year, they put in 5%, which is $3,000 per year.

It's a 100% rate of return. It is completely free money. If you did that, you would have $1.1 million over the course of 30 years just by getting your employer match. That is why your employer match is so incredibly. Powerful and you need to take advantage of it. Okay, so what to do next? First, I want you to check on your plans, match details.

You need to understand how your plan works. I want you to check on those match details. Second, log into your 401k portal and update your contribution. If you are not getting up to the match, you need to make sure that you are at least updating your contribution to get to the match. Third is make sure you're contributing all the way up to the match.

How many times do you want me to say it? I need you to log into your 401k portal right now. Right now we're talking. Go in there, make sure you're getting up to the match, and then don't leave free money on the table ever. When it comes to your employer, this is just an additional benefit. It means you're actually increasing your salary by X amount of dollars.

Just by doing this. If you make $60,000 per year, they match you an additional 5%. That means you're making $63,000 per year. Who wouldn't take that? And here's a cool thing because think about this for a second, as you start to get raises within your job. And as you start to get raises in your company, that match number just gets inflated.

So maybe it's 5% on $60,000 per year. You get a big promotion and all of a sudden you make a hundred grand per year. I'm just doing that for easy math for you. Boy, make a hundred thousand dollars every single year. Now you're gonna get $5,000 per year on the employer Match from your employer. How cool is that?

It just forces you to increase your contributions based on you making more. And what do we always talk about? Every time you get a raise, every time you make more money, you need to increase how much you are investing. Always, always, always. This does it for you without you even thinking about it. It is so powerful how fast your money will grow just by getting that 401k match.

Now I'm gonna give you a couple other matches that I want you to be looking for outside of just your 401k match that are a little less common, and we'll get into that next. Alright, number one is your health savings account match. So if you have a health savings account through your employer, some employers will offer you an HSA match.

This is really, really powerful. My wife, in her job, when she was in the corporate world, her job offered her an HSA match, a health savings account match, and so we took advantage of that every single year. Sometimes the match is based on how much you contribute sometimes. It's just up to a certain dollar amount.

Hers, for example, was a thousand dollars every single year, and that was the reason why I kept the HSA with her employer during that timeframe is because they had this $1,000 match every single year. Now, the HSA is super powerful. We just had an episode a couple of weeks ago. It might've been about a month ago now.

On the HSA, we call it the super retirement account and the amazing benefits surrounding it. So if you haven't heard that episode, make sure you go check it out. Um, but it has triple tax benefits, meaning it has pre-tax contributions, it can grow tax free, and you can invest those dollars and you can pull the money out tax free with qualified medical expenses.

So here's a another example of that. Sometimes your employer will contribute a thousand dollars per year if you contribute 2000, something along those lines. It grows tax free. And if you're healthy, investing your HSA for long-term tax growth is gonna be a powerful strategy. Number two is employee stock purchase plans.

So we just had Brian Aldi on the podcast. We dove deep into PPS on that episode. Uh, so if you wanna listen to that one, that's a great one to go through. But it lets you buy company stock today at a discount, usually five to 15%. So my first company that I worked at, we actually got it at a discount of 15%.

I personally did not use this in the way that I should have. Now I understand completely how to use it, but when I was in the corporate world, I wish I would've invested more in this employee stock purchase plan. And Brian and I kind of chat through that a little bit too. Uh, but why this matters is you have instant upside.

So if you believe in the company that you're working for, you have instant upside. You can buy it at a discount and you can sell it at market price after you make sure that you have this holding period that you are working through. So an example is $10,000 worth of stock. At a 15% discount means you get an immediate $1,500 gain for easy math.

And so I want you to just kind of think through and look for plans with a lookback provision, which lets you buy at the lower of start or in price. So that's a really good one to look at too. Three is another great way to look at, uh, free Money is student loan repayment assistant. So some employers will help you start to pay back your student loans, and a lot of them don't advertise this.

For obvious reasons, but look in your handbook, ask your HR department, do you have any student loan repayment assistant programs? If they do, oh boy, take advantage of that as much as you possibly can, because some employers will pay a portion of your student loans monthly and then it reduces your debt faster and it helps you free up your cash flow.

And an example of this would be a hundred dollars a month over the course of three years. Is $3,600 of free help. I want you to squeeze out as much free money as you possibly can from your employers. It's gonna help you in the long run tuition reimbursement or education assistance. So my first job had a really powerful program.

I. I did not take advantage of this. Also, like I'm telling you my regrets right now. Also, because there are things that you could do and the powerful program was they would literally pay for your MBA if you wanted to go back to school as long as you stayed with the company for five years. And if you are someone who has an expensive career, if your MBA is gonna cost you a hundred grand, that's about 20 grand per year that you could be getting back just by making sure that you take advantage of tuition reimbursement or education.

Assistance. They would literally pay a hundred percent of it, and I didn't take advantage of it. It would've been cool to at least have that. Uh, I was just so sick of college at that point in time. It was my first job outta college that I did not wanna go back. Should have done it though. That was one of those things that I definitely, definitely should have done.

Now, some will also cover certification. So if you are someone, uh, for example. If you wanna be a project manager and you wanna go get your PMP, some of them will cover certifications like that. And sometimes all you gotta do is ask, so they may not have it in the handbook, but just ask hr, Hey, will you help me cover some of this if I go back to school, uh, and start to work towards some of these degrees?

Sometimes they want you to have that and they will help you. Cover it. Five is dependent care. FSA match or contribution. So there are dependent care, flexible spending accounts. If you don't know what that is, they help you pay for daycare or afterschool care with pre-tax dollars. And some employers will help you with that because if you have kids under the age of 13.

It could be a huge, huge cost saver for you if they will help you pay for some childcare. Childcare. For most of us who have kids under the age of 16, I know I have a 6-year-old, I have a 4-year-old and I have a six month old, and because of that, childcare costs can rise really, really quickly. I know the pain, the restriction of what that can cost.

And if you have never felt that pain before, boy oh boy, is it painful? We talk about the big three all the time, but if you have kids, it's a big four. It is housing, food, transportation, and childcare. Those are the big four that I think a lot of people struggle with. And if that is you looking for this kind of a benefits can be really powerful.

I. Now, one thing I wanna say as we get to these first five is if your employer does not offer this, you can also petition to ask them if they would start to consider offering this as an additional benefit. It could be a negotiation tactic, it could be something that you put when you start to negotiate your salary with your bosses.

If they say No, start to ask for some of this stuff because maybe, maybe they'll consider that. Number six is a 5 29 college savings match. So this is a little less common, but it is growing in popularity and I've seen more and more companies doing this. A few forward thinking companies offer a match on your contributions to your 5 29 college savings plan, and this is free money for your kids' education.

Again, we know the rule, you know, if your kid gets scholarships or they go to college, you can roll the 5 29 at least $35,000 of it into a Roth IRAA custodial Roth IRA for them. So there's a lot of cool things you can do there. Number seven is commuter benefits. So some companies will offer commuter benefits, uh, if you need transit passes or parking or ride shares, um, they will offer that, especially in bigger cities.

And this can be tax savings and reduced community costs, which could be a big benefit for a lot of folks. Wellness reimbursements. So some companies also have wellness reimbursements, matching funds for reimbursements, for fitness memberships and wellness apps or classes, and this helps you stay healthy while saving money.

And staying wealthy. Uh, that's a big one. So like things like free class pass or peloton credits or gym credits are becoming more and more common. Many employers also match your charitable contributions up to a certain amount per year. And this doubles your impact while you're giving. So you donate $500 and an employer will also donate $500 for certain giving things if you're really charitably inclined, uh, and you feel like that's the way you want to go, that is a great one.

And then retirement plan contributions beyond the match. So some employers, and this is one I want you to ask for some employers, will contribute to your 401k. Even if you don't contribute, and if that's the case, amazing, you get free money no matter what. And this is often seen in government or education or nonprofit sectors, and it's similar to like a pension, but it is just another way, a modern way to kind of do that.

So if you can ask for that. That is a great, great benefit that you can also have. So that is, uh, some of the additional benefits that you can look for at your employer. And if you guys have any questions on that, please reach out to us and let us know. Listen, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode today.

I hope you got tremendous value outta this episode 'cause that is our entire goal. And if you do get value outta this episode, consider leaving a five star rating review on Apple Podcast Spotify. Or make sure you subscribe on YouTube. Thank you guys so much for being here, and we will see you on the next episode.