Go beyond a basic 401(k)

Go beyond a basic 401(k)

Give your employees more than just a 401(k), join the movement.

Blog
5 min read

Could your employer be your best financial adviser?

Esther Kim
November 11, 2015
Could your employer be your best financial adviser?
Table of contents

I read a lot of finance articles, just comes with the turf as a content marketer at ForUsAll. And for the most part, my favorite sources of content are from bloggers and podcasts. I went on a search to find really good content on how employers can offer employee benefits that help with their finances, and ways employees can hack their benefits to help them save more money. This blog series is the fruit of that labor.

My sweet spot is looking for content that speaks to the personal finance needs of small business owners and employees.

For the most part, when I find blog content on any of the following topics:

  • retirement savings
  • workplace finances
  • finance tips for small business owners
  • employee benefits

the blogs tend to be divided into two camps.

Camp 1: personal finance blogs, read primarily by people who are either passionate about finances or are facing a tremendous financial goal and are looking for help (e.g. getting out of debt, retiring at the age of 35, etc.).

Camp 2: small business blogs, clearly read by small business owners/operators. If I ran the data, I think the breakdown of topic coverage on small business blogs would look something like this:

What the breakdown of small business topic coverage looks like in my head.

The reason this bothers me — that there isn’t more overlap between the small business and finance blog worlds — is because any decision a business owner makes about retirement plans and finance-related benefits has a*direct*impact on the personal financial wellness of both owners and workers.

I began looking for content in earnest after an interview between our CIO David Ramirez and Joe Saul-Sehy, host and founder of the award-winning, iTunes chart-topping personal finance podcast, Stacking Benjamins.

In this interview, Joe and ForUsAll‘s David talk 401(k) fees, which ones to look out for, and how they could be cannibalizing the money you put into your 401(k) account.

Hacking your finance-related benefits at work can help you pull the big financial levers in life.

There’s a huge opportunity for bosses to really help workers, through employee benefits, pull the big financial levers in life — saving for retirement, paying off debt, covering health costs. Time Magazine briefly covered this topic in this fantastically named article, “Why Your Employer May Be Your Best Financial Adviser”.

From our perspective, there should be more content that exposes ways owners and workers alike can make their benefits work harder for them, and help them build up fat savings accounts.

So I’m launching a series — name still to be determined but I’m toying with “Paycheck Hacks” — to help you hack your workplace benefits with one goal in mind: save more money.

Business owners/employers looking for which finance-related benefit to offer your employees, check back here or sign up to receive blog updates to help choose cost-effective, time-saving options.

Employees looking to boost your savings, this series will help you hack existing benefits to boost your personal savings or help you lobby for ones you want offered at work.

Mini-Hack #1: Use your HSA to save even more pre-tax dollars now.*

I’ll drop a tip now. If you have an HSA plan at work (not to be confused with a flexible savings account, or FSA), you could be hacking that to make your retirement savings grow.

And if you’re asking why workplace benefits? Simple. You can budget, spreadsheet, and plan all you want. But benefits offered through the workplace have one AMAZING advantage, you can automate plans directly through your paycheck.

Et voila good-bye competing demands.

Stay tuned, and hooray for finance-related workplace benefits. 🙂

*This should not be deemed tax advice.  Please consult your tax advisors for further information.

ForUsAll was founded by experts who transformed the 401(k) for Fortune 500 companies, and we are backed by prominent venture capital investors and financial technology veterans who share our vision of bringing that retirement experience to small and mid-size companies. You can learn more about ForUsAll in this New York Times article.

Go beyond a basic 401(k)
Give your employees more than just a 401(k), join the movement.
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Esther Kim
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This material has been prepared for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation by ForUsAll, Inc., its affiliates or employees (collectively, “ForUsAll”)  to activate a cryptocurrency window or invest in crypto.  Investing in crypto can be risky and investors must be able to afford to lose their entire investment.  You should consult with your own advisers before activating a cryptocurrency window or investing in crypto.  ForUsAll does not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice. Please refer to your Plan's fee disclosure for more details.© 2023 ForUsAll, Inc. All rights reserved.
1 Schwab 2022 401(k) Participant Study - Gen Z/Millenial Focus, October 2022.
2 As of 12/31/2022. Employees include both current employees and terminated participants with a balance.
3 "Morgan Stanley At Work: The Value of a Financial Advisor" Morgan Stanley, March 2022.
4 Sarah Britton was a client when she provided this testimonial through an independent third party review website. She received no compensation for her remarks. There are no known conflicts of interest in the provision of her comments related to the services provided.