How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/v85yinoEBx4 ❌

📊 Open Enrollment Alert: The Dependent Care FSA limit just jumped to $7,500 for 2026!

This is huge news for working parents, but maximizing it isn't as simple as checking a box. If you over-elect, you risk hitting the "use-it-or-lose-it" trap. If you under-elect, you miss out on major tax savings.

Before you submit your workplace benefits selection this year, make sure you know how your workplace plan handles the new cap and how it interacts with the Childcare Tax Credit!

We just dropped a comprehensive guide breaking down exactly how to calculate your contribution so you don't leave a single dollar on the table.

👇 Watch the full guide here:

https://youtu.be/v85yinoEBx4

Quick Poll for the Community:

Are you planning to change your childcare FSA contribution for 2026?

• Yes, maxing it out at $7,500! 💰

• Yes, but doing less than the max 📉

• Keeping it the same as last year 🔄

• Not using a dependent care FSA ❌

Let’s chat in the comments—what’s your biggest frustration when trying to estimate childcare costs for the year ahead?

1 day ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/y-RnXCBBWGc 📊

Holding too much cash in retirement might be costing you more than you think. While a strategic retirement cash buffer can protect your lifestyle against sequence of returns risk, an excessive reserve severely reduces long-term growth and exposes your purchasing power to inflation.


Our latest video breaks down how to design a resilient retirement income strategy without sacrificing your long-term wealth.

What We Cover:

• The true cost of safety: How cash drag can silently reduce your viable annual spending (featuring insights from Morningstar's retirement income model) (0:41).

• Calculating your spending gap: Why your total retirement budget shouldn't dictate your cash reserve size.

• Behavioral vs. Mathematical math: Why holding cash can actually help investors stay on plan during market downturns.

• Refill rules: How to map out a clear withdrawal strategy so you never find yourself selling investments during a market downturn.

There is no universal cash reserve number. The right question is: What is your reserve meant to cover, and what tradeoff are you willing to accept?


📺 Watch the full breakdown here! - https://youtu.be/y-RnXCBBWGc

🚀 Support the Channel

Subscribe for more retirement planning and financial education:


👉 youtube.com/@howwealthgrows?sub_confirmation=1


#RetirementPlanning #CashBuffer #SequenceOfReturnsRisk #RetirementIncome #RetirementWithdrawalStrategy

3 days ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/0IWb1EOOp4s 📊

Your card was approved. Then you got an overdraft fee. What changed?

The restaurant screen said "Approved." You put your wallet away and went home.

The next morning, your bank app said "Overdraft fee."

Those two messages seem to contradict each other. If the bank approved the purchase, how can the same transaction trigger a fee?

The answer isn't that the bank made a mistake. It's that approval and settlement are two different moments — and a lot can happen to your account in between.

A scheduled payment you forgot about. A tip that changed the final amount. A hold that looked like a charge but wasn't one yet.

This video traces the exact sequence so you can see what happened — and what to check if it ever happens to you.

Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/0IWb1EOOp4s

Have you ever been hit with a fee after an approved purchase? Drop your story in the comments 👇

Want me to add a poll or image suggestion to go with it?

5 days ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/nASg3iUUDig 📊

The claiming decision that isn't just yours.

You're weighing Social Security at 62, 67, or 70. You're thinking about your timeline, your health, your plans.

But there's someone else looking at those numbers for a different reason.

Your spouse is wondering what happens to the household income if one of you dies first.

Most married couples don't realize the higher earner's claiming age can shape the survivor benefit the lower earner may live with for years. Not because the rules are hidden — but because nobody explains them in plain language.

We just published a video that walks through one couple's numbers at every claiming age. No scare tactics. No universal recommendation. Just the tradeoff, explained clearly, so you can run your own numbers.


🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/nASg3iUUDig ✅


What age are you planning to claim — and have you and your spouse talked about the survivor side of that decision yet?

1 week ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/xl0WPJtFCAQ ✅

Your 401(k) withdrawal can make more of your Social Security taxable. Here's what that actually means.

Most retirees don't realize these two accounts talk to each other on your tax return.

In this week's video, I walk through a real 2025 example:

A retiree takes $20,000 from a traditional 401(k) to cover a repair. Before the withdrawal, none of their Social Security was taxable. After it, $11,300 of their benefits get included in taxable income.

Not a scare tactic. Just the mechanism — so you can plan around it.

The key question before you withdraw: What does your full-year tax estimate look like WITH the withdrawal vs. WITHOUT it?

Drop a 💰 if you've ever been surprised by how retirement income gets taxed.

(Full breakdown 👇)

https://youtu.be/xl0WPJtFCAQ

1 week ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/758q2gvYNKY ✅

Does unlimited PTO feel like a trap to anyone else?

You get two job offers. One says "20 vacation days." The other says "unlimited PTO."

The second one sounds better. But here's what nobody tells you:

Some teams under unlimited PTO take just 5–10 days a year. Not because the policy stops them — because the culture never makes it clear what's normal. No accrual. No payout when you leave. Just a zero on the final pay stub.

Buffer found its employees averaging 9 days. They had to add a minimum to get people to take time off.

Meanwhile, a 20-day plan? If you earn those days and don't use them, 15 unused days could be worth thousands at departure — depending on your state and policy.

So which offer actually gives you more?

👇 Drop your experience in the comments — ever had unlimited PTO? Did you actually take it?

Watch the full breakdown → https://youtu.be/758q2gvYNKY

#UnlimitedPTO #JobOffers #CareerAdvice #PersonalFinance

1 week ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/jLN0KaOo-4w ✅

She raised you. She drove you to practice. She made sure you had everything you needed.

Now she's 78. She needs eight hours of help a week. And the money you planned for retirement is paying for it instead.

Not because you made a bad decision. Because you love her. Because what were you supposed to do — say no?

But here's what nobody tells you: that $400 a month never reaches your account. No withdrawal. No warning. The statement just stays the same while your future quietly shrinks.

$14,400 in contributions, never made.
~$42,050 in growth by the time you're 65, gone.
And you'd never even notice — because you were too busy being a good daughter. A good son.

You're not failing. You're the one everyone leans on. The problem is that the system made you choose between the person who gave you everything and the future you were building for yourself.

And nobody should have to make that choice in the dark.

In our new video, we put the whole ledger on screen — both versions, side by side — so you can see the tradeoff before it becomes invisible. Not to make you feel guilty. To make you feel seen.

🎥 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/jLN0KaOo-4w ✅

2 weeks ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

💰WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/7qBKDO7TD-g ✅

There's a number on every college offer that looks simple.

"$20,000 remaining."

Four years later, that same number can look like $748 a month — arriving long after the paycheck that felt big enough to cover it.

We built a full transparent model of one borrowing decision: two schools, one retirement budget, and the exact arithmetic most families never run before signing.

If you're a parent looking at college offers right now, watch this before you fill out the next form.

2 weeks ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

💰WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/q13T30TuKFU 📉

Your paycheck stops. Your accounts go up. How?

That's not a trick question. It's the retirement paradox that most financial advice skips — and it's exactly what this video walks through, line by line.

One example. One good market year, one bad one, one surprise bill. And a framework you can actually use before you stop working.

Watch the full breakdown here 👇


https://youtu.be/q13T30TuKFU

#RetirementPlanning #NetWorth #FinancialEducation

2 weeks ago |[YT] | 0

How Wealth Grows

🏠 WATCH | Listen | LEARN - https://youtu.be/zqnhAezV66Y ✅


You do everything right. You get preapproved. You find the house. Then two lenders send back very different ways to pay for it.

Which one do you pick?

Most people think the answer is "the lowest rate." But in the scenario we broke down in the latest video, the buyer chose the higher rate — because it left them with more cash in the bank after closing.

The cheaper monthly payment meant bringing $5,400 more to closing day. That's $5,400 you don't have if the water heater dies on move-in.

Here's the question I keep coming back to: When does "saving money" actually cost you more?

Drop your take below. 🏡👇

https://youtu.be/zqnhAezV66Y

3 weeks ago |[YT] | 0