A summary of the junior year topics including investing, taxes and medical and college savings accounts.

Junior Year Overview

A summary of the junior year topics including investing, taxes and medical and college savings accounts.

SUMMARY OF JUNIOR YEAR

Our “Junior Year” is complete now, with the main focus being on understanding investing and taxes.  While these have been heavier topics than in other “years”, it is vital that you understand each in order to build your wealth and achieve your financial goals.

To summarize what we’ve learned this “year”, we’ve covered:

REVISE YOUR FINANCIAL GOALS

It’s now time to go back and revise your financial goals that are related to investing or taxes.  The specific questions that you should ask yourself at this time include:

  • Should I be considering different or additional accounts (online money market accounts, CD’s, etc.) to help increase my return on my short-term cash investments?
  • Is there anything that needs to be updated in my financial goals based on adding investments or adjusting my current investing plan or portfolio allocation based on what I’ve learned in these classes?
  • Can I adjust or clarify any goals about taxes (for example, minimizing taxes in a specific area of your finances)?
  • Should I adjust my federal withholding taxes to more accurately represent my actual full year tax liability?
  • Can I adjust, clarify or add any goals about paying for medical expenses through the use of an HSA or FSA account?
  • Can I adjust or clarify any goals about saving for college through tax-advantaged accounts such as a 529 savings plan?

EXAMPLE: THE SMITH FAMILY

The Smith family (used as an example family in each class), makes the following changes (in red) after looking at their investments, taxes and current college saving goals.  Highlighted in blue font are tasks/goals that they’ve completed already.

Example Short-Term Goals Updated for Saving & InvestingExample Intermediate-Term Goals Updated for Saving & InvestingExample Long-Term Goals Updated for Saving & Investing

Congratulations on completing the third year of learning about MAKING YOUR MONEY MATTER!

What did you learn during the junior year classes?

LIKED IT? PLEASE SHARE!

3 Responses

  1. I love that this class is like a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Deep Dive. As a fellow accountant I love all things related to taxes and investing. So reading up on everything that you have to say is great perspective.

    Thanks for sharing!!!

    1. Thanks for following along :). I’ve never done the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace classes, but I’ve heard good things about them (I have to admit I’m not “Uncle Dave’s” biggest fan…haha).

      1. I agree with 90% of his material but his investing advice is awful along with some of the insurance info. I like to share with the class a different perspective regarding some of those topics.

welcome!

I’m Kathryn Hanna-wife, mother of 3 and a Certified Public Accountant. I love to budget (really, I do!) , build spreadsheets and spend money on travel, sewing supplies and good chocolate.

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