Meet Leonard and Penny
Both are successful mid career professionals looking to optimize their finances. Over the past several years their earnings have grown substantially but they're worried they won't be able to translate their income into financial freedom.
Leonard
Leonard is a 41 year old Experimental Physicist with a salary of $200,000. He feels that he and his wife Penny have done a good job saving to this point but feel like their assets aren’t being optimized to the best of their ability. He would like to retire early and start a business venture with his friend, Sheldon. His main question is if he’s saving enough to make this dream a reality.
Penny
Penny is a 42 Pharmaceutical Sales Representative and earns roughly $350,000 between her salary and bonus incentives. Penny and Leonard are interested in starting a family. Like Leonard, she also wants to retire early, but she has student loan debt that she’d like to pay off ASAP. In the back of her mind she’s also concerned that if they start a family and she were to pass away suddenly that her family would be in a tough spot.
Financial Planning Results
After going through the financial planning process Leonard and Penny learn that with a few changes to their plan, they’re well on their way to achieving their financial goals. After reviewing their budget, we identified that they had an additional $3,000/month that they could save towards their goals of paying off debt and retiring early. We are currently working with them to implement the following action items to put them on track to retire at 56, 6-years earlier than they anticipated before starting the financial planning process:
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Pay off Penny’s Credit Card Balance
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Refinance Penny’s Private Student Loans
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Increase Brokerage Account Contributions to $2,000/month
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Fund Backdoor Roth IRA for $7,000 for Leonard
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Fund Backdoor Roth IRA for $7,000 for Penny
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Update 401(k)/403(b) investment allocations
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Add individual life insurance coverage and update estate planning documents