Demographics
Clients: Angie + Claire
Age: 32, 33
Occupation: Middle School math teacher, pharmacist
Primary Goal: Get a financial plan in place, prepare to have kids, manage their student loans
The Situation
Angie and Claire are almost ten years into careers that they both love. They’ve done a good job of saving money, but are unsure about what they want to do in the future.
They’ve been married for a while now and Claire has been able to set her schedule to have time off to travel with Angie in the summer. Now they want to focus on building a family.
They have two big challenges: First is navigating their family planning, from fertility treatment, to planning for parental leave, to getting the right insurance coverage. Second, both Angie and Claire have student loans, and feel overwhelmed with their loan payments and the thought of upcoming childcare costs.
Angie also wants to know if she could take a year or two of unpaid childcare leave, and how that would affect their ability to provide for their kids, their kids’ college, and still retire when they want to while traveling and not giving up everything they enjoy in life.
They’ve done a great job of utilizing their district/company retirement plans, but other than that, the rest of their money is sitting in their savings account as they have been unsure of what to do with their savings.
Angie and Claire only know what they know. As they approach this new stage of life, they want an expert to help them make the right decisions for their family so they don’t have to worry about it. They are going to be busy enough building a family and managing their jobs.
The Approach
Angie and Claire weren’t sure where to start, so they wanted to hire a financial planner who has worked with people in their situation before, who understands their goals, and is familiar with their job benefits.
They wanted to be involved in the process and empowered to choose what is best for their family, and they wanted peace of mind knowing that the decisions were being made with professional guidance, knowing that they aren’t going at it alone.
The Results
Angie and Claire were excited to get started with a financial planner who truly understood their goals and challenges.
They received a comprehensive plan that included:
Different retirement planning scenarios and pension analysis that incorporated potential time off for childcare leave
An optimized student loan plan that took into consideration their tax filing status and future PSLF for Angie, which lowered both their monthly loan payments by a few hundred dollars each month and long term loan costs by $10,000s
Health insurance benefit analysis to determine who should carry the insurance for the family to maximize coverage for fertility treatment (potentially savings $1,000s in deductible and co-insurance costs), and what would happen during a childcare leave
A parental leave plan that takes into consideration their different employer leave benefits
Life insurance analysis to make sure their family was protected against events that could drastically hurt their financial picture
College savings plan utilizing the best accounts for flexibility and taxes
Medium term goal planning to allocate some savings to a “summer travel” fund and a “home down payment” fund, while investing the rest for longer-term gains
Automation for their investments and savings so they don’t have to spend time manually doing this every month
Cash flow analysis of their current spending and saving, and how to make adjustments if they went down to one salary
Now Angie and Claire have a clear picture of where they are and where they’re going. They’re on track for all of their goals and feel empowered in their decisions.
The best part about it all is that they finally have peace of mind around their finances and feel ready to have a family knowing that they have flexibility around their employer benefits and leave options.