Published By Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc.
Pay raises and promotions will increase an employee’s income. Extra money is always welcome, but is it enough? The financial wellness of an employee can be a paycheck to paycheck experience. It helps when people know their budget and understand their financial worth.
The Need for Budgets
Few employees choose to be financially irresponsible. Most know the importance of budgeting but do not understand the mechanics. A young employee might develop a tight budget with every penny allocated to a specific expense. An emergency will throw that kind of budget into chaos. An older employee might not contribute to his or her HSA or 401(k) program. A hefty medical bill will cause nightmares and poor retirement planning makes the golden years bitter.
Future purchases will require putting money aside. An individual must save for down payments on a house and figure out how to pay a monthly mortgage. Money matters can be confusing, and some assistance is appreciated. Countrywide Pre-Paid Legal Services has a Financial Wellness Plan that makes sense of a person’s budget and financial worth.
The Counsel of an Expert
Countrywide uses certified counselors to provide help. Our network is nationwide and a counselor’s office is close to a Countrywide client. A face-to-face meeting is not difficult to arrange.
Altering Spending Habits
An employee with a large college loan might be paying an excessive amount each month. A Countrywide counselor can look at the payments and suggest ways to restructure them. Credit card debt usually has double-digit interest rates. The counselor can suggest strategies to handle credit card finances (e. g. Paying off credit cards with low balances, debt consolidation, negotiating lower interest rates, etc.).
Employees should contribute to their HSA and 401(k) accounts. A Countrywide counselor can provide financial wellness advice that squeezes extra money out of the budget (e.g. Switching from a whole life insurance policy with high premiums to a term life insurance policy that allows greater coverage at a lower cost). The new cash can create reserves that meet medical expenses and save for retirement.
Big Purchases
Many want to buy a house and aren’t sure if they can afford one. The down payment is ordinarily significant. A counselor can do an asset inventory for the plan member. This exercise will reveal what can be sold to meet the down payment needs. Our self-study course, “Make Your Move”, gives insights into house hunting many don’t know about. An employee will discover that buying a house will not damage financial wellness.
The Employer Will Select
We want our financial wellness plan to provide as much benefit as possible to a client’s employees. We have no way of knowing the demographics of an organization, but management does. We allow clients to select those financial wellness options which they, the decision-makers, feel are best suited for the employees.
We respect those choices and we will back them up with excellent member services. Our administration is designed to provide service but, most important of all, we insist on emotional intelligence from our counselors.
Budgets and personal financial worth are highly personal affairs. Nobody wants to be embarrassed or lectured to by a professional. Our counselors know that we want them to provide solutions and not sermons. We insist that everyone in a client’s workforce be treated with respect, regardless of the job title. A counselor who cannot do that will not be with us for long.
Designing a budget that is easy to understand is a great step forward for any person. It gives a better sense of command over personal finances and permits that person to plan. The same can be said about the asset inventory service we can provide. There are other benefits Countrywide has that an employer may be interested in finding more about. Please feel free to contact us and ask as many questions as you like. We will gladly answer every one of them.