Maximize Your Benefits: A Guide for All Employees
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Anyone who works at a company that offers benefits owes it to themselves to maximize those benefits. The broad choices available today may provide flexibility, but for many, they also create confusion. Few resources explain the pros and cons of the various offerings. Employers shy away from giving advice, concerned about potential liability. In the end, employees are left with little guidance on how to maximize the array of benefits offered.
Certified financial planner Neil Downing, whose columns are published by newspapers nationwide, provides the answers every working person needs. In Maximize Your Benefits: A Guide for All Employees, Downing clearly translates tax, legal and investment jargon into simple terms that everyone eligible for benefits can both understand and use to full advantage. He explains:
* how company benefits fit into a household's overall financial plan * issues related to pensions, vesting and defined benefit plans * the pros and cons of participating in cafeteria plans and flexible spending account opportunities * defined contribution plans (such as 401 (k) plans)-- if, how and when to invest * health insurance benefits: deciding between traditional plans versus HMOs, plus issues of portability and staying insured * How monitoring a plan ensures workers get what they're promised * How to negotiate your benefits
From the Publisher
Are You Getting the Most from Your Employee Benefits?
Its easy to overlook your employee benefitsyou get a brochure or handbook from your employer, then throw it in a filing cabinet and forget about it. Big mistake! Your benefits package is just as important as your paycheck, in some ways, even more important. Your benefits can play a key role in helping you determine when and whether to buy a house, start a family, retire, or look for another job. Too many of us take our benefits for granted, when we should be taking them for all their worth! In Maximizing Your Benefits, Neil Downing guides you through the maze of benefits choices you can face and helps you choose a package that fits your personal needs:
* Should you choose a traditional health insurance plan or HMO? * How much should you contribute to your 401(k)? How should your money be invested? * Should you participate in your companys cafeteria plan? * What are you losing by failing to take advantage of your employers flexible spending account? * Are stock options really all theyre cracked up to be?
Employers are reluctant to offer advice, fearing liability, but Neil Downing isnt. Whether you are currently grappling with the dozens of choices facing you or evaluating a benefits plan offered by a prospective employer, Maximize Your Benefits is required reading.
Its a shame that most employees do not take full advantage of the many benefits their employers offer. By reading Neil Downings book, you will be sure to maximize every benefit that you are entitled to. He not only explains all the traditional benefit plans, but also all of the latest options including Medical Savings Accounts, SIMPLE plans, Roth IRAs, cash balance pensions, Preferred Provider Organizations, stock option plans, and much more. Read this book and reap the most from your benefits!
Jordan E. Goodman, Author, Everyones Money Book
Planning frequently gets a bad rap in this age of high-tech free-form innovation, but when it comes to financial security and employee benefits there is no substitute for planning. Maximize Your Benefits paints a beautiful picture of how planning can essentially give you a raise without having to ask and a better prospect of long-term financial security. In short, this is a book that will pay for itself a thousand times.
Dallas L. Salisbury, President & CEO, Employee Benefit Research Institute This is a must-read for every worker in the U.S. Neil has taken the myriad of employee benefits and translated them into English for his readers. Workers need to understand their benefits so that they can make educated choices when changing jobs.
Dee Lee, CFP, Harvard Financial Educators, and Author, Let's Talk Money and The Complete Idiot's Guide to 401(K) Plans
Maximize Your Benefits: A Guide for All Employees
Maximize Your Benefits: A Guide for All Employees,Neil Downing,Dearborn Trade Pub,0793137004,Accounting - General,Business & Economics,Business / Economics / Finance,Employee fringe benefits,Human Resources & Personnel Management,Labor & Industrial Relations,Personal Finance,Personal Finance - General,United States
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