PART 1 OF 3: Money Expenses To Create The Retirement Of Your Dreams

What if I told you ...

... you can save hundreds of thousands of dollars on taxes in retirement?
The answer depends on how you use your 401k, 403b, 401a, 457, TSP, or any other employer plan.

Hi! I'm Jason Bergquist, the owner and founder of RetirementOfYourDreams.com.

1. What does your employer offer?
2. How does your employer’s match work?
3. When to begin retirement planning.

Let me introduce myself if we still need to meet. I'm Jason Bergquist!

I empower individuals and families to create the Retirement Of Their dreams.

I've been doing this for over 20 years through the ups and downs of the markets.

My whole goal is to help educate people.

Empower them to understand how to set up the retirement of their dreams.
And bring hope back into their lives.

I realized this was my calling in 2010 when I was going through a divorce.

I was at a financial low at that time, and I realized that I wasn't practicing what I preached.

I committed to practicing what I preached and became an Independent Financial Professional ...

... and a Certified Financial Fiduciary.

This experience allowed me to always do what's in my client's best interests.

Now, I work with a team of experts to empower you to create the Retirement Of Your Dreams.

Again, we're starting with "The Best Structure For The Most Tax Benefits," Part 1 of a 3-part Video Series on: Money Expenses to Create the Retirement Of Your Dreams, including ...

1. What does your employer offer?
2. How does your employer’s match work?
3. When to begin retirement planning.

Let's jump right into it ...

If you want the best structure for the most tax benefits ...

... you've got to answer these 3 questions about taxes:

1. Do you want tax now?
2. Do you want tax later?

OR

3. Do you want tax never?

Whenever we ask these questions, everybody wants the 'tax never.'

Of course, who wouldn’t?

A better way to put it is tax, never again!

For the most part, in most areas, you’ll have to pay taxes at some point.

There are a couple of opportunities where you can avoid paying taxes altogether.

Still, those are going to be specific to you and your situation.

We want to have these conversations and discuss investment options, like an HSA account, and how they can be 100% tax-free.

Plus, there are other tax benefits that we can talk with you about that I’m sure most are not aware of.

When we hear ‘TAX-FREE,’ most people think of a Roth IRA, a Roth 401k, or Cash Value Life Insurance, and these are great options, but we must still know how to maximize them.

There are different ways to look at it, but the conversation we want to have ...

... is tax now or later.

Will taxes go up or down in the future?

Everybody I ask replies, "Taxes are going up ... they have to!"

The conversation is, where are you?

What are you currently doing?

What options do you have?

For instance, I met with a lady named Nina. She had a great retirement plan set up.

Nina had lots of investments in place and was now debating Roth conversions.

Nina was not contributing to her Roth 401K. She said her employer didn’t offer a ROTH 401K, so I asked her, "How would you like to be in the 0% tax bracket?"

Nina said, "Of course, I would love that."

I discussed with Nina and her husband what it means to try to be in the 0% tax bracket, what that would look like, and how amazing that would be for their retirement.

Another question to ask yourself and an assessment I do with all of my clients is:

Will you have a lesser tax burden in retirement?

Many people think their tax bracket will be lower because they'll make less money.

While this alone may or may not be true.

One of the things that we need to do is understand where your money is going right now.

85% of all people's retirement savings are in their employer plans such as 401 Ks, 401 Bs, or TSP accounts ...

... or whatever their employer offers.

So, you need to understand what that means. You need to know how that works. You need to figure out what your employer plan offers.

Now, that can be confusing to look at.

Don’t worry. We are going to help you with that.

Get your employer plan, book, or handbook and send that to us.

Our Retirement Of Your Dreams experts can help you understand it.

The first thing we need to do is figure out what your employer offers for retirement.

Now, this is different for everybody. Every employer offers a different kind of match. There are many options.

We went through this process with Nina.

She realized that her employer no longer matched her 401K contributions. And that seemed odd.
Most employers matched something!

But as we dug into it, they ‘used’ to match but no longer do.

They made other contributions to benefit their employees but no longer matched the 401K.

Now, most companies will give you a match, like 3%, if you have a 3% match on a 3% contribution.
It’s referred to as a 100% match-up to 3%.

Other companies have a sliding scale where they’ll say we'll match 100% of your contribution ...

... up to 2% of your pay or a specific dollar amount.

Then, we'll match 50% of what you put in for the next 2 or 4%.

You have to understand how those matches work.

You have to understand what free money is.

Can you get it?

Should you get it?

How should you get it?

Now, should you get the free money?

... But if you put in more than the company matches, there's likely a better place for those funds.

The other conversation is, does your company offer a Roth 401k, a Roth employer plan, and a Roth TSP?
I know for a fact that TSP has a Roth option.

Again, with Nina, she said that her company didn't offer that. As we dug in further, they 100% provided it. She wasn't aware of it. They did indeed offer at ROTH 401K!

We want to see if you’ll avoid paying taxes in the future ...

Figure out what your employer has ...

What does that match look like ...

Where you’ll put your money ...

How you’ll get that match ...

If more money goes in than you're getting matched, you should put it somewhere else.

Well, everybody should start retirement planning as early as possible.

Most of my videos are for 55-year-olds or older within a couple of years of retiring.
Or you're already retired.

But you want to have retirement planning conversations at any age or every age!

I often hear this comment when we meet ...

...I wish I would've known that I could put money in my Roth 401k ... 4, 5, and even 10 years ago.

It’s best to begin retirement planning as soon as possible.

IT’S VERY IMPORTANT: After we have your retirement planning conversation ...

... then we'll have that conversation with your kids and grandkids.

Recently, my son-in-law gave me a call. He's 30 years old, and we had the retirement planning conversation.

He's making pretty good money now, and he's self-employed.

We had to discuss what he could set up without having an employer plan with a match.

Or something sponsored by the employer.

And I asked him, "Do you want to worry about taxes now? Do you want to lower your tax or taxable income now? Or do you want to worry about paying taxes in the future?"

He answered, "I don't want to pay taxes in the future. Let's get all our tax out of the way, so I understand there's a Roth IRA I should contribute to."

And I continued, "Well if you're contributing a 401k, you told me you don't want to pay taxes in the future."

He replied, "I don't know why anybody would want that. Why would anybody choose that?"

I replied, "Your wife is putting money in her 401k. She is delaying her taxes. You're going to pay taxes on that money in the future."

You've got to be asking questions, but everybody should have something set up.

The moment you get a job, the moment you step into a career, the moment you have an employer with an option that will have funds set aside ...

... whether that's an employer-sponsored plan ...

... whether that's a stock option plan ...

... whether that's a 401k ...

... whether you have a TSP or a 401a ...

... whatever those are, you need to understand them!

And especially nowadays when most people don't stay with a job forever like we used to.

1. What does your employer offer?
2. How does your employer’s match work?
3. When to begin retirement planning.

Now that you understand what to do when you leave your job, the funds you've been saving, and your options for Money Expenses to create the retirement of your dreams ...

Tune back next week to Part 2 in this series about Money Security, where we'll dive further into this and explore your best options.

Thank you for considering Retirement of Your Dreams as your partner on your financial journey!
What was your BIGGEST takeaway from this week's video?

Please scroll down and let me know in the comment section below!

I'm Jason Bergquist, empowering you to create the Retirement Of Your Dreams!