{"id":28,"date":"2023-10-12T13:58:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-12T13:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/?p=28"},"modified":"2023-06-07T17:00:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T17:00:27","slug":"a-very-smart-money-step-for-gen-z","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/a-very-smart-money-step-for-gen-z\/","title":{"rendered":"A Very Smart Money Step for Gen Z"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"612\" height=\"408\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/gettyimages-1430503053-612x612-1.jpg\" alt=\"Two Adirondack chairs on a wooden dock overlooking a calm lake. beautiful landscape of mountain lake, vacation in the mountains, luxury autumn vacation concept\" class=\"wp-image-29\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/gettyimages-1430503053-612x612-1.jpg 612w, https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/gettyimages-1430503053-612x612-1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>If you are in your first &#8220;real&#8221; job and starting to make decent money, odds are that you&#8217;re focused on enjoying your life, your friends, and your new freedom. You probably don&#8217;t think about an event that&#8217;s 40 or 50 years down the road &#8212; your retirement. Yet strangely, now is probably the best time to start laying the financial groundwork for the time you&#8217;ll leave the workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s why you should jump at any opportunity to sign up for a retirement savings plan at work as soon as you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>You&#8217;ll be in control.<\/strong>&nbsp;When you enroll in your employer&#8217;s plan, you choose how much to contribute and where you want your contributions invested (from a menu of investment options). You won&#8217;t be locked in to your choices &#8212; you&#8217;ll be able to change them if you want to.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>You are young, and that&#8217;s an advantage.<\/strong>&nbsp;As investment earnings are reinvested along with your plan contributions, you&#8217;ll have a bigger pool of money invested for potential growth. The longer your money is invested, the more you may benefit. So starting early is very smart.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>You&#8217;ll get tax benefits.<\/strong>&nbsp;Every dollar you contribute to your plan account on a pretax basis really costs you less than a dollar in take-home pay. Here&#8217;s how it works: Your contributions are subtracted from your pay before federal (and often state) income taxes are calculated. That means you pay tax on a lower amount of income. You contribute more to your plan account than you give up in spendable pay. The earnings on your plan investments are also tax deferred. You won&#8217;t pay income taxes on pretax contributions or plan earnings until the money is distributed to you. These tax breaks can make it easier to build your savings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>You&#8217;ll enjoy a more secure financial future.&nbsp;<\/strong>The money you set aside in your retirement plan account will be your money no matter what &#8212; yours to spend as you choose when you exit the working world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Sure, looking so far into the future can be a little strange and may be intimidating. But given increasing life spans, uncertainty surrounding the future of Social Security, and the always looming possibility of inflation making everything more expensive, it&#8217;s smart to do a little planning now to help ensure your future financial security. For help with your planning, talk to a financial professional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are in your first &#8220;real&#8221; job and starting to make decent money, odds are that you&#8217;re focused on enjoying your life, your friends, and your new freedom. You probably don&#8217;t think about an event that&#8217;s 40 or 50 years down the road &#8212; your retirement. Yet strangely, now is probably the best time [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dacostasaccounting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}