This weekend your challenge is designed to help you prepare for the open enrollment period at your company. Open enrollment is the time when you can adjust the majority of your benefits. You can enroll in health insurance, dental insurance and life insurance at open enrollment, if you have opted out in the past. Additionally you can look at using a flexible spending account to decrease your pretax income.
The first thing you need to do is look at what you currently have. Has it worked for you this year? Is there anything you would like to add to your insurance package? If you spent a lot on medical expenses you may want to enroll in the flexible spending account. The business will withhold a set amount from your paychack each month, and reimburse your medical expense. The drawback is that if you do not use the money you lose it. This means you need to estimate conservatively when planning.
Now with the other insurance options available to you, what do you really need. Not all insurance is created equal. For example often the cost of dental coverage is almost equal to the amount the policy will cover in a year. If this is the case it does not make sense to purchase dental insurance. Look at your current needs and decide what you will actually use and choose that.
Take a few minutes to look at your retirement contributions as well. Are you investing at least up to your employer’s match? Do you have the option to begin contributing to a Roth 401(k)? If you are out of debt are you investing fifteen percent of your income to your retirement? Remember you can invest in both IRAs and 401(k)s. With a Roth account your contributions are taxed when you put them in, but you can withdraw the money without paying taxes on the interest. This choice will save you the most money in the long-term.
Take a quick look at your career goals. Make sure you are on track with those goals. Ask yourself if the company is stable? Are layoffs expected soon? If so what are you doing to prepare for that now? Begin saving for an emergency fund and start looking for a new job opportunity as soon as you think you are in danger of losing your job.
