The Personal Finance Podcast - The Ultimate Guide to Becoming an Employer Match Millionaire (FREE MONEY)

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast,  we are going to talk about  the Ultimate Guide to Becoming an Employer Match Millionaire. Watch this episode on Youtube How Andrew Can Help Y...ou:  Listen to The Business Show here. Don't let another year pass by without making significant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining  Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest!  Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! , Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok.  Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course  Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here.  Car buying Calculator here Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at  shopify.com/pfp Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Shop Data Plans and Save Big at mintmobile.com/pfp  Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ for 20% off!  Links Mentioned in This Episode:  The Ultimate Guide to the HSA (The Super Retirement Account!) What Do I do With an HSA at an Old Employer?! (Plus How to Avoid RMD's) - Money Q&A Connect With Andrew on Social Media:  Instagram  TikTok Twitter  Master Money Website  Master Money Youtube Channel   Free Guides:   The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money  How to Negotiate Your Salary  The 75 Day Money Challenge  Get out Of Debt Fast  Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:56 Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, the ultimate guide to becoming an employer-match millionaire. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be giving you the ultimate guide to becoming an employer-match millionaire. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join that MasterMoney newsletter by going to MasterMoney.com.
Starting point is 00:01:45 newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever podcast player, you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now, today, we're going to be diving into the ultimate guide to your employer match. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you a bunch of different ways to get free money when it comes to your employer and your employer match. For a lot of people out there, they think that a nine to five job is not a great way to build wealth. I completely disagree. In fact, I think there's a number of different great ways to build wealth with your nine to five job now if you know how to utilize some of the things that they offer you.
Starting point is 00:02:28 So at the top of the show, we're going to talk through your employer match. We're going to talk through how powerful it is. And I'm going to show you how it can actually make you a millionaire if you take action on that employer match. Then in the second half of the show, I'm going to show you just a couple of additional benefits in ways that you can get free money with your employer. depending on what they offer. And they may have some of these offerings, and you have no idea that they are actually offering some of these things. And so I think it's really, really important for a lot of people to understand just what are some of these quick things
Starting point is 00:02:58 that I need to note when it comes to making sure I get that free money because that is what your employer matches. Now, if your employer offers that 401K match, or maybe it's a raw 401k match, then you need to make sure that you are taking advantage of it. Why? Because it's free money. And free is my favorite number.
Starting point is 00:03:17 I don't know about you, but I love having free money. If I told you, I'm going to give you $100. And in return, you're going to get back $200 if you just hand me $100. What would you say? If you said no, you would be absolutely crazy. And that's literally what your employer is doing when they offer you an employer match. So in this guide, we're going to walk you through everything that you need to know about your employer match. We're actually to do a deep dive on employer matches.
Starting point is 00:03:41 And what it is, how it works, and how to take full, full. advantage of it here up front. So if that's something you're into, you love building wealth, you want to actually take advantage of free money. Let's get into it. So what is an employer match? That's the first thing. If you don't know what it is, this is when your company contributes money to your 401k, sometimes it's other accounts as well, or your retirement account based on how much you contribute. Okay. So it is like a bonus for saving for your future. So if your employer offers a 100% match on the first 5% that you put into your 401k, and you make $60,000 per year, they'll contribute $3,000 per year if you contribute $3,000 per year.
Starting point is 00:04:22 Now, let me just say something real quick. Just look at that one simple example. If you make $60,000 a year and they will match you up to 5%. My first employer, they match me up to 5%. And so if they'll match you up to 5%, you can literally get $3,000 per year completely free by just investing in your future, by literally just investing in your future. You never see the money. It never has to hit your account. In fact, you don't even pay taxes on those dollars that you put in there. So there's tax advantages to it in addition to you also getting free money. Now, this, my friends, is a double M. It is absolutely amazing how powerful this can be over time. That is literally just free money for investing in yourself. So here's why it is so powerful. First is you may get an instant
Starting point is 00:05:04 100% rate of return on your contributions when you are fully matched. Now, some matches are partial. Sometimes they'll give you 75%, sometimes they'll give you 50%, sometimes they'll give you 50%, sometimes they may give you 25%, but it is still free money just for contributing your dollars. And over time, you can see how powerful this can be. I've shown you in past episodes that if you just tweak something $100 every single month, how much more you will have by the time you retire over the course of 30 years. Your 401k match is no different. This is forced savings that allows you to double your savings power just by taking advantage of it.
Starting point is 00:05:38 So if you have a 100% 401k match, there is no if, ands or buts about it, You need to be doing this. You need to do this before you pay off debt. You need to do this before you start investing in something else. You need to do this in every single financial scenario that I can think of. That needs to be done. Secondarily, there are no taxes owed when you have a 401k match, specifically for the 401k until you withdraw the money in something like a traditional 401k. So this, my friends, is so incredibly powerful because A, you're contributing to your financial future. B, you're getting that possible 100% rate of return, and C, you're not paying taxes on the dollars that you are actually contributing to this account up front. So in this current tax year,
Starting point is 00:06:20 when you contribute, let's just keep using that same example, $3,000 this year, you will not get taxed on that $3,000. That, my friends, is another powerful tool. Third is compound interest. So once you get those dollars into your 401k, you start to invest those dollars over time. That's not just going to be the end of it. Your money is going to compound over time. It's going to grow at a specific rate of return, depending on what you invest in. A lot of 401Ks are index funds. There's target day retirement funds. There's mutual funds in there, but you have to go in there and elect your investments. And so making sure that you do that is really, really important as we go through this. So let's talk about some of the common employer
Starting point is 00:06:58 matches that are out there. One is there's something called a dollar for dollar match. So an example of the dollar for dollar match is the first example we gave, but another one is 100% match on the first 4% that you contribute. That is a very common match for a lot of people. Three, four, five, and six percent are the ranges I've seen a lot of people have, but I've also heard of much higher ranges as well, which you have no idea how amazing of a benefit that is. So in this scenario, if you put in 4% and it is a 100% match on the first 4% that you contribute, if you put in 4%, they put in another 4%. Now, secondarily, another match that is out there is the partial match. So say, for example, you get a 50% match on
Starting point is 00:07:37 the first 6%. So if you put in 6%, then they will contribute 3%. So literally, it is still free money for you investing for your future. You put in 6% of your income. They put in the next three, and that will allow you to have 9% invested. You're only you are only putting in 6%. You're literally getting a 50% rate of return just by putting your money into the 401k. Third is a tiered match. So tiered matches are becoming more common as well, where it is 100% match. For example, on the first 3%, a 50% on the next 2%. and then if you contribute 5%, that means they would contribute 4%.
Starting point is 00:08:11 This is just a tricky way for them not to match as much as they typically would, but this is another great benefit. It is still well worth it, even if there's a tiered match, to figure out how much exactly they are going to be matching you. So if you're thinking about this
Starting point is 00:08:26 and you are asking yourself, well, I don't know how much they match. Well, we're going to tell you exactly what to do and how to maximize your match next. All right, so how to maximize your match? Step one is I want you to go to HR and I want you to check your benefits package. And what you're looking for is a couple of different things. One is you want to know the percentage of your salary that they will match. If you
Starting point is 00:08:49 don't know this number, it is a very important number to know. It is the first question I would ask HR. Second, is there a calf or limit on their matching? And third, what is the vesting schedule? We're going to talk a little bit more about vesting here in a second, but you may have heard that term in the past. And a lot of times people will hear that term for their 401K. Sometimes they'll hear it for a pension. Sometimes you will hear it for your ESPs. Sometimes there's all these different things that you could hear it for. We're going to talk through that here right after this. Step two is I want you to contribute enough to get the full match. So if you want to maximize your match, you want to contribute enough to get the full entire match that is vested. Okay. This is really,
Starting point is 00:09:26 really important. If they give you a 100% return on a 5% match and you only put 2% in, you are literally leaving thousands of dollars in the table, literally. And in fact, if you compound this over the course of 30 years, this is a million dollar decision. Your employer match, if you have time, is a million dollar decision. Do not fall short on this just because you want to get some more Uber Eats or just because you want to go out and have a couple of extra target runs. Making sure that you get that full 401k match should be the highest priority, especially if it is a 100% rate of return.
Starting point is 00:09:59 So that means you are missing out on free money. So step one, again, understanding, find out your match formula. Step two is to contribute enough to get the full match. Step three is set it and forget it. Once you set this up, the beautiful thing about this is, you don't have to think about it ever again. You just continue to make sure that you are getting the match every single year. This is automatically going to happen. You're not even going to remember that that money was there and it is going to grow over time. Do you know how many people I have told to just set this up? Just do this alone. Okay? And they will start it at their employer
Starting point is 00:10:30 and their workplace. Before this podcast began, I had friends who I would tell, hey, make sure you at least get that employer match. I know you don't know a ton about investing. I'll teach you over time, but let me just tell you, get your employer match. What's my employer match? I explain it to them, and they just do it. Okay? So they just start to do it and get their employer match. And they look 10 years later, because they barely look at their investments anyway. And 10 years later, they look and they go, holy cow, I have 40, 50, 60, $100,000 in my account just because I got my employer match and I didn't even miss that money. I never saw it. Because when you sign up for your employer, if you get the employer match right away,
Starting point is 00:11:05 you're not even going to notice the difference. Literally won't notice the difference because you're just going to get use to that money getting taken out. This is automating your money 101. This is the easiest way to automate your money is just to elect to get your employer match. Now, most plans let you choose a percentage of your income.
Starting point is 00:11:20 Start at least with enough to get that full match. Always, always, always, when you're contributing to your 401K, start with at least enough to get your 401k match. Now, a lot of you may have a vesting schedule within your 401k. Some of you may not. some of you might. My first employer did not have a vesting schedule with their 401k. We did have a vesting schedule if you wanted to buy employee stock. And so understanding what a vesting schedule is is really,
Starting point is 00:11:43 really important. So vesting is how much of your employer's contributions you actually own over time. So immediate vesting, V-E-S-T-I-N-G is what I'm saying here, you own 100% of employer contributions right away. So that is the number one thing is immediate vesting. Secondly, is great at investing, meaning you earn a portion each and every single year. So this is what I saw with our employee stock purchase plan is if you bought company stock, or they would give you company stock a certain percentage, and you would get vested based on how long you were there. So say, for example, you were there for one year, then they would vest it a certain portion. So it would be about 20% of that amount for the first year. If you were here for two years, you're going to get 20, 40% of
Starting point is 00:12:23 that amount. Three years, 60, 4 years, 85 years, 100%. And so this can also work with your 401k match. Let's say, for example, they'll match 100%, but it gets vested over the course of the next five years. So in year one, they'll match 100%. It's going to go into your 401k, but you only get to keep 20% of that in the first year. If you leave after this year, only 20% of it goes with you. The other 80% they're going to keep. You're 2%, 40%, you're 3, 60, something like that. So sometimes vesting schedules are two years, sometimes they're five years.
Starting point is 00:12:50 Sometimes they're really bad and they're 10 years. If it's a 10-year vesting schedule, I would probably reconsider just some of my structures there, but I would really think about that. And then there's Cliff vesting. So Cliff vesting is the third one, and that is you get zero percent until a certain year, and then 100 percent. So for example, if you stay here for three years, you're going to get 100 percent if your 401k match. Now, some people, and it's amazing how the psychology works with this, some people will literally not leave a job that will not give them any additional benefits,
Starting point is 00:13:17 just because they're waiting for their 401k to vest. That, my friends, is usually not always the best choice. You've got to run the numbers on that, but for a lot of different scenarios, you've got to look at the vesting schedule, understand that vesting schedule, because you do not want to chain you to a job that you don't like. So making sure you know what is going on there is going to be super, super important. Now, even if you're paying off loans are struggling to save, it is really hard to beat a 100% guaranteed rate of return, which is why we want you to always do this first. Now, in Master Money Academy, which we are building out right now, you're going to see, we're going to give you an exact order of exactly what to do with your money. And it's going to start from how to open your accounts correctly.
Starting point is 00:13:55 then we're going to go into how to make sure that you're saving properly in buckets. Then we're going to make sure that we show you which credit cards to open so you have the proper spending plan in place. We're going to build out your spending plan. We're going to build out your insurances. We're going to build out everything up in front ahead of time. But the first thing we want you to do when you start to take these big, big action steps is making sure that you are taking action on that 401k match. This is the most powerful thing you can do that is so easy. It's small amounts of money that are going to grow over time to very large amounts of money. Contributed enough to get the match and then worry about the rest. If you're in credit card debt,
Starting point is 00:14:28 contribute enough to get the match and then start paying off that credit card debt if you get 100% return. Let me show you the long term impact here because I think this is really important for a lot of people to understand. Let's go back to that. You make $60,000 per year. Because I want people to know, even if you have a modest salary, if you make $60,000 per year and your employer matches 5%. And you contribute 5%. Here is what is going to happen. It is so amazing what could happen, even with small amounts of money. So if you contribute $3,000, per year. So 60,000 per year, 5% of that is $3,000 per year. And your employer is going to match that with an additional $3,000 per year. That means your total annual amount that you are investing
Starting point is 00:15:05 is at $6,000. Let's just say you got a 10% rate of return. Where'd you get 10% from? Well, if you look at the historic averages of the S&P 500 over the course of the last few decades, you can see it gets a 10% rate of return. That's where we get that number from, okay? Just look at the historic data. If you got a 10% annual growth rate over the course of 30 years with that $60,000 per year salary and a 5% match, you would have $1,130,000 in your 401k. If you did nothing else, just that one habit, you'd have $1,130,000 every single year. Now, I'm going to say it one more time for the people in the back because I want you to understand how powerful this is. If you made $60,000 per year and your employer gave you a 5% match.
Starting point is 00:15:51 match. Okay? If they gave you a 5% match and you put in 5% because you wanted to get that match. So you put in 5%, which is $3,000 per year, they put in 5%, which is $3,000 per year. It's a 100% rate of return. It is completely free money. If you did that, you would have $1.1 million over the course of 30 years just by getting your employer match. That is why your employer match is so incredibly powerful and you need to take advantage of it. Okay. So what to do next? First, I want you to check on your plans match details. You need to understand how to your plan works, I want you to check on those match details. Second, log into your 401k portal and update your contribution. If you are not getting up to the match, you need to make sure
Starting point is 00:16:29 that you are at least updating your contribution to get the match. Third, is make sure you're contributing all the way up to the match. How many times you want me to say, I need you to log in your 401k portal right now, right now where we're talking. Go in there, make sure you're getting up to the match. And then don't leave free money on the table ever when it comes to your employer. This is just an additional benefit. It means you're actually increasing your salary by X amount of dollars just by doing this. If you make $60,000 per year, they match you an additional 5%. That means you're making $63,000 per year. Who wouldn't take that? And here's a cool thing, because think about this for a second. As you start to get raises within your job, and as you start
Starting point is 00:17:03 to get raises in your company, that match number just gets inflated. So maybe it's 5% on $60,000 per year. You get a big promotion and all of a sudden you make $100,000 per year. I'm just doing that for easy math for you, boy. Make $100,000 every single year. Now you're going to get $5,000 per year. You year on the employer match from your employer. How cool is that? It just forces you to increase your contributions based on you making more. And what do we always talk about? Every time you get a raise, every time you make more money, you need to increase how much you're investing. Always, always, always. This does it for you without you even thinking about it. It is so powerful how fast your money will grow just by getting that 401k match. Now, I'm going to give you a couple other matches that I want
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Starting point is 00:21:02 through your employer, some employers will offer you an HSA match. This is really, really powerful. My wife in her job, when she was in the corporate world, her job offered her an HSA match, a health savings account match. And so we took advantage of that every single year. Sometimes the match is based on how much you contribute. Sometimes, it's just up to a certain dollar amount. Hers, for example, was $1,000 every single year. And that was the reason why I kept the HSA with her employer during that time frame is because they had this $1,000 match every single year. Now, the HSA is super powerful. We just had an episode a couple of weeks ago. It might have been about a month ago now on the HSA. We call it the super retirement account
Starting point is 00:21:40 and the amazing benefits surrounding it. So if you haven't heard that episode, make sure you go check it out. But it has triple tax benefits, meaning it has pre-tax contributions. It can grow tax free and you can invest those dollars and you can pull the money out tax-free with qualified medical expenses. So here's another example of that. Sometimes your employer will contribute $1,000 per year. If you contribute $2,000, something along those lines, it grows tax-free. And if you're healthy, investing your HSA for long-term tax growth is going to be a powerful strategy. Number two, is employee stock purchase plans? So we just had Ryan Ferraldi on the podcast. We go deep into ESPPs on that episode. So if you want to listen to that one, that's a great one to go through.
Starting point is 00:22:16 But it lets you buy company stock today at a discount, usually five to 15. So my first company that I worked at, we actually got it at a discount of 15%. I personally did not use this in the way that I should have. Now, I understand completely how to use it. But when I was in the corporate world, I wish I would have invested more in this employee stock purchase plan. And Brian and I kind of chat through that a little bit too. But why this matters is you have instant upside.
Starting point is 00:22:40 So if you believe in the company that you're working for, you have instant upside. You can buy it at a discount and you can sell it at market price after you make sure that you have this holding period that you are working through. So an example is $10,000 worth of stock at a 15% discount means you get an immediate $1,500 gain for easy math. And so I want you to just kind of think through and look for plans with a look back provision, which lets you buy at the lower of start or in price. So that's a really good one to look at too.
Starting point is 00:23:05 Three is another great way to look at free money is student loan repayment assistant. So some employers will help you start to pay back your student loans. And a lot of them don't advertise this for obvious reasons. But look in your handbook. Ask your HR department. Do you have any student loan repayment assistant programs? If they do, oh boy, take advantage of that as much as you possibly can. Because some employers will pay a portion of your student loans monthly,
Starting point is 00:23:28 and then it reduces your debt faster and it helps you free up your cash flow. And an example of this would be $100 a month over the course of three years is $3,600 of free help. I want you to squeeze out as much free money as you possibly can from your employers. It's going to help you in the long run. Tuition, reimbursement, or education assistance. So my first job had a really powerful program. and I did not take advantage of this also. I'm telling you my regrets right now also because there are things that you could do.
Starting point is 00:23:53 And the powerful program was they would literally pay for your MBA if you wanted to go back to school as long as you stayed with the company for five years. And if you are someone who has an expensive career, if your MBA is going to cost you 100 grand, that's about 20 grand per year that you could be getting back just by making sure that you take advantage of tuition reimbursement or education assistance. They would literally pay 100% of it. and I didn't take advantage of it. It would have been cool to at least have that.
Starting point is 00:24:19 I was just so sick of college at that point in time. It was my first job out of college that I did not want to go back. Should have done it, though. That was one of those things that I definitely, definitely should have done. Now, some will also cover certification. So if you are someone, for example, if you want to be a project manager and you want to go get your PMP, some of them will cover certifications like that. And sometimes all you got to do is ask.
Starting point is 00:24:39 So they may not have it in the handbook, but just ask HR, hey, will you help me cover some of this if I go back to school and start to work towards some of these degrees. Sometimes they want you to have that and they will help you cover it. Five is dependent care FSA match or contribution. So there are dependent care flexible spending accounts. If you don't know what that is, they help you pay for daycare or after school care with pre-tax dollars. And some employers will help you with that because if you have kids under the age of 13, it could be a huge, huge cost saver for you if they will help you pay for some child care. Child care for most of us who have kids under the age of 16, I know I have a six-year-old, I have a four-year-old, and I have a six-month-old. And because of that,
Starting point is 00:25:21 child care costs can rise really, really quickly. I know the pain and the restriction of what that can cost. And if you have never felt that pain before, boy, oh boy, is it painful? We talk about the big three all the time, but if you have kids, it's a big four. It is housing, food, transportation, and child care. Those are the big four that I think a lot of people struggle with. And if that is you, looking for this kind of a benefit can be really powerful. Now, one thing I want to say as we get to these first five is if your employer does not offer this, you can also petition to ask them if they would start to consider offering this as an additional benefit. It could be a negotiation tactic. It could be something that you put when you start to negotiate
Starting point is 00:25:57 your salary with your bosses. If they say no, start to ask for some of this stuff because maybe, maybe they'll consider that. Number six is a 529 college savings match. So this is a little less common, but it is growing in popularity. And I've seen more and more companies doing this. So a few forward-thinking companies offer a match on your contributions to your 529 college savings plan. And this is free money for your kids' education. Again, we know the rule, you know, if your kid gets scholarships or they go to college, you can roll the 529, at least $35,000 of it into a Roth IRA, a custodial Roth IRA for them. So there's a lot of cool things you can do there. Number seven is commuter benefits. So some companies will offer commuter benefits.
Starting point is 00:26:36 If you need transit passes or parking or ride shares, they will offer that, especially in bigger cities. And this can be tax savings and reduced community costs, which could be a big benefit for a lot of folks. Wellness reimbursements. So some companies also have wellness reimbursements matching funds for reimbursements for fitness memberships and wellness apps or classes. And this helps you stay healthy while saving money and staying wealthy. That's a big one. So like things like free class pass or Peloton credits or gym credits are becoming more and more common. Many employers also match your charitable contributions up to a certain amount per year. And this doubles your impact while your giving. So you donate $500 and an employer will also donate $500 for certain giving things.
Starting point is 00:27:15 If you're really charitably inclined and you feel like that's the way you want to go, that is a great one. And then retirement plan contributions beyond the match. So some employers, and this is one I want you to ask for, some employers will contribute to your 401K, even if you don't contribute. And if that's the case, amazing. You get free money no matter what. And this is often seen in government or education or nonprofit sectors. And it's similar to like a pension, but it is just another way. a modern way to kind of do that. So if you can ask for that, that is a great, great benefit that you can also have. So that is some of the additional benefits that you can look for at your employer. And if you guys have any questions than that, please reach out to us and let us know.
Starting point is 00:27:53 Listen, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode today. I hope you got tremendous value out of this episode because that is our entire goal. And if you do get value out of this episode, consider leaving a five-star rating review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or make sure you subscribe on YouTube. Thank you guys so much for being here. And we will see you on the next episode. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play Ojo.
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