Did you recently receive an email from your employer asking you to sign up for benefits? Navigating Benefits Enrollment Season alone can be tricky, which is why Eric and Tiffany Grant of “Money Talk with T” have your back. Eric and Tiffany cover choosing a retirement and healthcare plan, HSAs and FSAs, nontraditional benefits (Like Payactiv!), and so much more. Happy Benefits Enrollment Season! 

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Listen below or read the transcript that follows.

Eric Rosenberg:

Hello everyone. This is a quick reminder that today’s episode is for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered legal or financial advice. Thank you.

[Intro music]

Hello everyone. Welcome back to The Good Cents by Payactiv podcast. As always, I am your host, Eric Rosenberg. Today I am so excited. We have a guest who used to be in HR. Her name is Tiffany Grant. I’ve gotten to know her at a few conferences over the last few years. She’s a great person and she is here today to share her insights on how to take advantage of open enrollment. That’s the period of the year when you can re-sign up or change your benefits from insurance, to deductions, to all sorts of other fancy things.

There’s a lot of complicated words and terms in there, and Tiffany breaks it all down and helps make it understandable in today’s episode. So we’re going to dive in and get started. Here we go with Tiffany Grant.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, I am so excited to be here with Tiffany Grant. She has serious HR knowledge and she’s going to drop some knowledge bombs on us right now. As you know, if you’re listening as this comes out, it’s open enrollment season. That means you’re probably getting a big packet from your employer. It might be through your email, it might be an actual packet.

I’m old enough that it used to be paper packets. I remember those days, but however it shows up, it’s really important. And Tiffany, as a former HR manager, knows all the ins and outs of those packets. So welcome to the show, Tiffany, we are so glad to have you.

Tiffany Grant:

Hey Eric, thank you so much for having me and thank you for allowing me to nerd out on something that I love nerding out on.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yes, HR. I mean your work benefits, as we were talking a little before we hit record, there’s kind of two parts of your pay package. There’s the part that’s the dollars and cents, that’s the money that gets direct deposited into your bank account or your Payactiv account if you use that for direct deposit. So you get paid those dollars and cents, but you also have these benefits and it’s not always easy as a worker to understand what those benefits are worth.

You might look at a healthcare benefit if you get that through your employer and they might list out what they contribute on your pay stub but there’s a lot of choices you can make, especially as we said, this open enrollment period with that big digital or physical packet with all these choices you can make.

So Tiffany, when you’re doing open enrollment, thinking either for yourself filling out the forms or if you were advising maybe a family member, maybe you have a younger cousin who’s earlier in their career and they say, “Hey Tiffany, what do I do with this form? I don’t know. What’s the deal with life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment? I don’t want to have death and dismemberment. What’s going on here? What do I do?”

So what are you going to tell this cousin or niece or nephew or your buddy who comes over and asks you? What’s the first thing you’re going to tell them?

Tiffany Grant:

So first things first, know your open enrollment dates. I know when I used to be in HR, some people would miss them just because they didn’t pay attention to when those dates were going to happen. So if you start getting notifications from an HR department, make sure you read them so that way you can know when your open enrollment is.

Another thing to also think about and make sure you understand is if it’s active or passive open enrollment. So what is that? Because that’s a lot of what we don’t talk about, but there’s two different types of open enrollment. Active means that they clean the slate and so everything that you used to have, you’ll no longer have until you make new elections. So if it’s an active open enrollment, you want to make sure you know so that way if open enrollment season is over, you look up, you’re like, “What happened to my benefits?” Well, it was an active open enrollment.

If it’s passive, that means they just roll over everything that you already have and you don’t have to make any changes if you don’t want to. Now a lot of companies are doing active open enrollment just because they want people to be more in tune with what’s going on with their money and their benefits and so a lot of companies have moved towards that route.

With that being said, know your open enrollment dates, know if it’s active or passive and then when you’re looking at your benefits, you want to start by evaluating what you already have. So a lot of times when I was in HR, people would either sign up for everything or sign up for nothing and there was barely anything in between.

Eric Rosenberg:

You got to be more thoughtful than that. I feel like you got a lot of decisions to make.

Tiffany Grant:

Yes because if you think about it, if you sign up for too many benefits that you don’t need, that’s extra money coming out of your paycheck that’s unnecessary. If you don’t sign up for enough, then you’re leaving your total rewards on the table. And so just to backtrack a little bit, because I love educating. Total rewards is your pay plus your benefits. So when Eric was talking about a lot of people just focus on salary, you also want to look at benefits too because that’s part of your total rewards package.

You want to make sure that you are evaluating what you currently have. Did you use it? Is it something that’s helpful for you and your family? Is this something that you want to carry on or is this something that you can drop and then pocket the money? So evaluate what you already have.

Now once you do that, if you are doing this with a partner, because if you think about it, that’s two different opportunities that you can have benefits.

Eric Rosenberg:

You can almost double dip a little bit if you’re married or have a partner supported by your employer.

Tiffany Grant:

So you want to make sure that you all are looking at each other’s stuff and seeing, okay, what’s the best route we should go as a family? Because sometimes what happens is, and I’ve had this happen with clients, is that they’ll both sign up separately when really it could have been more beneficial if they signed up together or vice versa.

And so you want to have those conversations when open enrollment comes around so that way you can make the best decision for everyone involved. So let’s get into the benefits because that’s my next tip. Make sure you educate yourself on what the benefits are that are available to you and if you’re unsure of what any of the things mean, definitely go to your HR department.

Now I will warn that not all HR departments will be knowledgeable about this stuff. Typically, they will give you a packet or just direct you to the portal and that’s the most that they know, honestly.

So if that’s the case, you want to make sure that you educate yourself as well and there’s a lot of material out there on the web where you can learn about what benefits are, how they work, and how you can even optimize your benefits by having them work together. So make sure you educate yourself on what you’re signing up for so that way you can also make the best choices.

Now getting into the benefits, some typical benefits that you might see are like 401k, you might see Roth versus traditional and just to explain that real quick, traditional 401ks mean that the money comes out pretax. So that means that the money comes out of your check and you don’t have to pay taxes on that and so it lowers your tax bill. Then there’s the Roth 401ks where you get taxed on the money now so that way you don’t have to be taxed on it later. With the traditional, you’ll be taxed on it later.

Eric Rosenberg:

Before we keep going, I want to throw out one of the best parts of 401ks, which I don’t think you said was it was, a kind of retirement plan, if you’ve not heard that term before. So 401k, it’s also called a 403B or a 457 depending on where you work, they’re more or less the same thing.

So a 401k, my favorite thing about it, not only is you get to save on taxes, if your employer is super cool, they will match your contributions. What is a match? How does that work?

Tiffany Grant:

Yes. So matches depend on the company of course but just to give you a quick example, they might say, “We’ll match 50% up to 6% of your salary.” So what does that mean? That means if you-

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s a lot of numbers.

Tiffany Grant:

So I’m like, let me break it down. So let’s say for instance you put in $30. That means your employer will put in $15 and they’ll do that up until 6% of what your total salary is for the year. And so if you think about it, that’s already getting a return on your money that you don’t have to wait on the stock market for.

Eric Rosenberg:

It’s free money on the table. That’s what I like to say. Don’t walk away from it. It’s like your employer is like, I will give you… If they will match up to 6% of your pay, that’s like a 6% raise they are willing to give you, all you have to do is pay yourself first. That is so cool.

Tiffany Grant:

Exactly, it is so awesome and that’s one thing I miss as an entrepreneur, but what I tell people is please just put in up to the match. And I get a lot of people, because I help people that make all different types of income and they’re like, “Well I can’t afford it. I can’t afford to save for retirement.” But typically it’s not really dollar for dollar that you’re going to miss because if, for instance, if it’s a traditional, you’re lowering your tax bill so less taxes are going to be coming out and therefore it’s really not going to be as big of a hit.

And also if the money comes out first, so if you pay yourself first, then you can start getting your head around what comes afterwards and what is actually deposited into your account. So you won’t even miss it, I promise, a lot of the times.

Eric Rosenberg:

And I would flip that around, not just say you can’t afford it, I’d say you can’t afford not to do it because future you, when you have a few more gray hairs than you do now and you’ve been around the sun a few more times, you want some retirement assets. Most people, unless you went to college to learn this like Tiffany and I did, most people don’t realize unless you save about 15% of your income, you won’t be able to maintain that same quality of living in retirement.

And you do get social security, which is great. Hopefully that’ll continue but if you don’t have additional savings, you might be in a tough spot. So do make sure you take advantage of that 401k. Do not look that over. That is something future you will really appreciate.

Tiffany Grant:

Yes, absolutely. Completely agree. And so definitely put in up to the match. Even if you can’t, just do a little bit at a time. Sometimes I’ll have clients that’ll do 2%, then they’ll bump it up next year to 3%, then they’ll bump it up next year to 4% and so you’re not seeing as big of a hit. But like I said, it’s really in my experience and after working with people with so many different income levels, they really don’t miss it to be honest, once they go ahead and sign up.

So that’s enough with the retirement plans. Let’s talk about healthcare because that’s the part that a lot of people get very confused on, which I do not blame you. It’s a lot of options, it’s a lot of acronyms, it’s a lot of things to know.

Eric Rosenberg:

What’s a PPO from an HMO from a… There’s so many. I mean there’s Os right there. There’s so many letters. It is way too complicated, it is really hard. First off, if you have the option to get healthcare from an employer, let’s say you’re single or you don’t get it through your spouse, is it a good idea to take advantage and say, take your healthcare?

Tiffany Grant:

Yes absolutely, and here’s why. So ever since the Affordable Care Act came out, they made it so that all health plans have to pay for your preventative care and so that’s 100% covered benefit. So if you’re generally healthy and you just go for your yearly physical or what have you, all of that is 100% covered. So it doesn’t matter what type of plan you’re in, all of that’s going to be covered.

And a lot of employers are skipping the HMO, the PPOs, and now they’re doing high deductible health plans. So that’s the HDHP. And so, a lot of people that were used to the older plans which were their deductibles were maybe less, their copays were less than the high deductibles but if you’re generally healthy and your health plan, so your HDHP includes an HSA, that is a whole nother game that you can play in order to save money.

And so let me just explain what I mean by that. Because a lot of companies are going to high deductible health plans and having a HSA attached to it, sometimes employers will match those dollars as well. Some employers will front load the HSA for you and that is your money to keep. Then some don’t do either one but every dollar that you put in is tax free.

And so this goes back to lowering your tax bill if that’s a goal of yours. When you’re looking at your health plan, there’s a few things that you want to pay attention to. Your deductible. So your deductible is what you have to meet before the health plan actually pays for something. Now like I said, this does not include preventative care. So this is everything outside of preventative care. So preventative care does not count towards your deductible. For instance, a high deductible health plan, the deductible might be like $10,000 or something like that or more.

And so you want to make sure you know what that number is because they are not going to pay for anything other than preventative care until you meet that. And then you want to look at copays. So if you are an HMO or PPO, you might have copays and what those are is how much you will pay if you go to the doctor in the office. So let’s say for instance you go to the doctor, they’re like, “Your copay is $10.” Every time you go to the doctor you have to pay the $10. Now mind you, this is after preventative care. So this is like when you get sick, stuff like that, go to a specialist. Usually specialists and primary doctors have different copays, so pay attention to that as well.

Also you want to look at if there’s co-insurance. So co-insurance is similar to a co-pay. So if you see the terms, they’re typically used interchangeably but it just means that you have to pay a certain amount with the health plan provider and then that’s how you get your coverage.

Another thing you want to make sure you look at if you ever do use your health insurance is your benefit summary. So every time you go to the doctor they’ll send you a benefit summary which will tell you exactly how they applied your benefits and if you went to the doctor before this previous year and you got some of those and you have them available, that might be something you want to look at while you’re thinking about open enrollment for this year because there might be a better plan that might better suit your situation, your family, so on and so forth.

So those are some things to think about when you’re looking at your health plan. There’s a ton more but I don’t want to take up too much time just talking about health plans.

Eric Rosenberg:

The one last place I’d look that we didn’t mention there is the out-of-pocket maximum. If you’re someone who uses your health insurance a lot, maybe you have health conditions. I know I’ve got a few things, a lot of people have a few things. So if you go to the doctor often or have any expensive conditions, you want to know what the most you would ever pay in a year is. That’s what the out-of-pocket maximum stands for.

Tiffany Grant:

Yes, I’m glad you mentioned that because everything above the out of pocket maximum, the health plan will cover all of it. So just keep that in mind as well. Thank you so much for bringing that up because I totally forgot about that.

Eric Rosenberg:

If you have a baby, that is a year that you want to probably do all of your other healthcare stuff in your family too because babies are really expensive in America. I was in Canada, I told a friend it costs $5,000 with insurance roughly to have a baby in America. He was like, “Wow.” And I said, “But though that year when my wife had all those costs and we had new baby costs, I was like, well I’m going to go get this checked out and this checked out and this checked out because we hit our out of pocket max.” So once that point hit the rest of the year, it was essentially free for me to get any healthcare.

Tiffany Grant:

Awesome, awesome, and I’m glad you brought that up because thinking about how your family situation is going to change in the next year. So let’s say for instance you’re planning for a baby and you’re trying for a baby, then you might want to think about that as you’re signing up for benefits. Now granted we didn’t cover this, open enrollment. Once open enrollment is over, that’s it. If unless you have a qualifying life event, having a baby, getting married or getting a divorce, losing your insurance for whatever reason, and there’s a few others, but those are qualifying events where you can sign up throughout the year.

So if there’s somebody listening and you’re like, “I got to wait for open enrollment but I had my baby in June,” you could do a qualifying life event where once you have the baby you can re-sign up for benefits at that time too.

Eric Rosenberg:

It’s like a special enrollment period just for you if one of those things happens. When you mentioned losing insurance the big time that might happen, let’s say your spouse is the source of your health insurance and they lose their job, you might then have a special open enrollment period for your family where you put yourself and your spouse on your company’s plan instead of theirs.

Tiffany Grant:

Yes, absolutely. And so we went over the big benefits typically but a lot of employers do other benefits too. So I’ve worked places where we offered college tuition reimbursement and how that worked was if you decided to go back to school, they just needed a see or better I believe and then once they got the see or better, they submitted all of their tuition costs and stuff and then they got reimbursed. Usually there’s a cap on it. I know at the company that I worked it was like $5,000, but that’s another benefit that a lot of people don’t use.

Eric Rosenberg:

I took advantage of that one actually. When I was early in my career, I decided to go back to school to get a graduate degree, to get an MBA. Our cap was a lot lower than $5,000. I think it was $1,000 a year, but hey that was $1,000 that I was happy to take.

Tiffany Grant:

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes there’s parental leave and I say parental leave because a lot of companies are getting away from just offering maternity leave because that’s what it used to be called. Now they are starting to offer it to the dads as well. So if you’re a dad out there or soon to be dad, make sure you pay attention to that too.

And just to give you a quick example, because I’m familiar with Amazon’s benefits. Amazon offers up to 20 weeks for the birthing parent. So the person that’s actually giving birth to the baby, you can get up to 20 weeks of paid leave. So that means they are paying your entire salary for that 20 weeks and you don’t have to go into work for it. And then six weeks for the non birthing parents. So if it is the dad or whomever else, then they can get up to six weeks paid.

And then they also have something which is very, very unique and I wouldn’t be surprised if other companies start doing this, but they have a leave share program and that allows employees to give six weeks of paid parental leave to a spouse or partner whose jobs doesn’t provide leave. Let’s say for instance, I’m giving birth. I get 20 weeks, I can give six weeks of that to my partner so that way they can spend time with the baby too.

So there’s so many different ways and flavors that companies do things. That’s why it’s so important to get familiar with what’s available for you. There’s other benefits, sometimes you might see health benefits. So I’ve seen where a company will offer, let’s say for instance, they want to offer a benefit where you get a certain amount every year to spend on health stuff. So what it maybe is getting a Bosu ball or something like that.

Eric Rosenberg:

Gym memberships.

Tiffany Grant:

Right, gym memberships. Some employers offer that. Some employers offer where they will have an FSA available, dependent care FSA, that’s dependent care flexible saving account. So what that means is if you pay for daycare out of pocket for instance, you can have that money tax free. Now the only issue with that is you have to pay for it upfront and then get reimbursed, but at least that money can be tax free.

Really quick, I want to go over the difference between an FSA, which is a flexible spending account and an HSA, which is a health savings account. So a lot of people get those two confused, which I completely understand. It’s only a one letter different.

Eric Rosenberg:

They’re both got the SA, and they’re both about healthcare. So it is really confusing.

Tiffany Grant:

It is, it’s very confusing. With both, they’re made for healthcare expenses. So that means getting your prescriptions, that means getting over the counter medicine, paying your copays, things like that. That’s what you can use those accounts for. Now with an FSA, your money expires at the end of the year. So December 31st you have to use up all you can. So that’s why you see people like, “I got to hurry up and use my FSA.” They’re buying allergy medicine for the next season or what have you, just so they can use up all that money.

Eric Rosenberg:

Band-aids.

Tiffany Grant:

All the band-aids and things like that. And I will tell you the list is very expansive. You can find the list, if you just Google FSA eligible healthcare items or whatever, or healthcare expenses, you can see the list. You’ll actually be surprised at some of the stuff that you can pay for with it. But with an HSA, so a health savings account, that money rolls over year, after year, after year, after year. There’s no period where it stops.

Eric Rosenberg:

With the FSA, they say you if you don’t use it, you lose it, and that has gotten less strict over time. There was just a law passed I believe this last year that will allow you to roll over a little bit more of your FSA money so it isn’t all lost. So you don’t have to spend it all on sunscreen and anti-itch cream.

I’m trying to think of all the funny things that people keep in their medicine cabinet, the hoard of pain killers. All that stuff people buy at the end of the year. When I say painkillers, I mean Tylenol and Advil.

Tiffany Grant:

Like over the counter.

Eric Rosenberg:

Like the weak stuff. But anyway, so more of it rolls over. Either way, if you have access to them, would you say if you have access to an HSA, Tiffany, should you take advantage even if you don’t have a lot of healthcare expenses?

Tiffany Grant:

Absolutely and the reason I say that is because with HSAs it goes in tax free, it grows tax free and you take it out tax free as long as it’s for medical expenses and like I said, it rolls over year after year. So I use my HSA, like when I was working, as another retirement plan because as you get older, of course your health is going to start deteriorating. I mean that’s just how life goes.

Eric Rosenberg:

I plan to get healthier as I age. I’m going to do a reverse Benjamin Button.

Tiffany Grant:

Well good luck, I believe in you, but most people start going downhill. So thinking about that, you can put the money in tax free now, let it grow tax free and then pay for your current expenses out of pocket, save those receipts and another hack with that is if you save your receipts, and let’s say for instance, your car breaks down. Let’s say it’s $500. If you have $500 in receipts, you can go ahead and submit them and then you can get the money out of your HSA and you can pay for it. It’s totally legal because you’re still using it for health expenses, it’s just that you have paid for them out pocket front.

Eric Rosenberg:

Sounds like we might have to do a whole episode on HSAs and FSAs. These are complicated things but you could take a lot of advantage to really help your finances if you’re savvy.

Tiffany Grant:

Absolutely. I would love to come back for that because I have so many tips and tricks around both.

Eric Rosenberg:

For the FSA… So we’d say the HSA, pretty much you want to take advantage no matter what. The FSA, I’d say you don’t always want to take advantage necessarily. How do you decide if you take advantage and how much to put in?

Tiffany Grant:

And that’s why it’s so important to look at how you spent on healthcare the previous year when it’s open enrollment time or even leading up to open enrollment time because that can guide you on how much you should put in for the next year.

A lot of times when people are trying to use up their benefits real quick, it’s because they put too much in and if you put too much in, that means that’s less money in your paycheck that you could have had throughout the year and now it’s going towards band-aids. So you want to look at your past expenses and see what makes sense.

Now there are some employers that match FSA funds too and so you also want to look at that. So just make sure you’re looking at all the possible options and varieties that you have in that type of plan and figure out what makes the most sense for you and your family and the best way to do that, like I said, is to do a look back and see.

Eric Rosenberg:

For me, always when I had an FSA before I got the HSA, I always did that look back. The one time I did something different, I was planning on getting laser eye surgery, something kind of like LASIK, and that was going to cost about $2,000. So I had that $2,000 taken out of my paycheck in the FSA and let’s say I was in the 25% tax bracket at that time period in my life, that would save me about $500 on my taxes to get my eyes done, which I was going to do anyway. So really think about how you want to take advantage of those health plans.

But one thing that I think is really important to talk about are the various types of life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment, AD&D. There’s other variations of things like life insurance you might see. Spousal life insurance, child life insurance, all kinds of life insurances. They’re not always super fun to think about because they pay out if you die or if you lose a limb and hopefully those don’t happen to you or if you die and I guess we all do, it’s a long, long, long time away. But how do you decide if you should take advantage of those benefits?

Tiffany Grant:

So when you’re looking at life insurance, some companies, well most companies typically provide a payout automatically, so it’s already included in your employment. So find out what that is first and see how much it is. Then you can evaluate if you need the additional insurance.

Now here’s the thing to remember about company plans when it comes to life insurance. Once you leave the company, that’s the end of your plan and sometimes if it is portable then it’s usually more expensive so keep that in mind. And usually what I tell people is when it comes to life insurance, just get an outside plan so that way you don’t have to worry about it because then that way it’s fully portable. So if you lose your job tomorrow you’ll still have your life insurance versus it going away.

But if you are interested in workplace life insurance plans, typically they have you look at if you want to add a spouse or you want to add dependents, what have you, and typically it’s pretty cheap, not really that expensive. And a lot of times going through the workplace, if you have a preexisting condition, a lot of times they don’t look at that. So if that’s some of your situation then it might be worth going with the workplace plan so they don’t look at that.

Eric Rosenberg:

If you have a little extra room in your budget, which everyone doesn’t, but if you do, something I recommend people do as they mature in their finances is to have that portable life insurance that you own yourself but then maybe have the workplace one as an extra if you can afford it because as you mentioned, it’s so cheap. The cost per dollar of coverage is really, really, really low.

So God forbids, something happens to you, it would be extra money to your family. So for me, when I had the full time nine to five at a big company, I took advantage even though I had my own life insurance just because it was like $10 a month. It wasn’t that much in the scheme of things to get my family another half a million or a million dollars. Some big amount of money if something happened to me.

So that was my thought but again, if you can’t afford it, that’s not something you have to do but it is a big value for a lot of people.

Tiffany Grant:

Absolutely, and then really quick, accidental death and dismemberment. So that’s saying if you have… and a lot of times employers already cover this benefit and they just ask you if you want to buy extra. So make sure you know what you’re already covered for before you go into these kind of cafeteria plans.

But accidental death and dismemberment, that’s saying if you for instance get into an accident and that’s how you die, or let’s say you lose a limb, they’ll tell you how much you’ll get if you lose an arm, if you lose two arms, if you lose a leg.

Eric Rosenberg:

I think those schedules are so funny and schedules like a list of what they pay per injury, it’s like your right pinky is worth this much but if it’s cut up only to this knuckle, it’s worth this much. They’re very, very detailed but hopefully we don’t ever lose limbs or anything. But I just think it’s funny to look at because it’s so detailed.

Tiffany Grant:

Yes it is. And then there’s one more that’s kind of popular too and that’s the hospital care benefit. So if you’re stuck in the hospital for a reason, so for instance there was an employee where I worked and she got it because she knew that she was going to have surgery that year and so she got it ahead of time so that way they can pay for her stay in the hospital and all that other good stuff that they include.

It just depends on how the plan is set up. But she was able to use that benefit because she planned ahead of time, she knew she was going to have surgery. So that’s why I say it’s very important to know what you have coming up, what you have currently going on and then just plan your benefits around that.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s great advice. Another insurance that… There’s just so many insurances, short term and long term care. That’s one I think is really, really important because the odds of somebody needing it is so high. It’s been a long time since I’ve read the numbers but the last I looked, if you’re in your twenties or thirties, the chances that you’re going to need some kind of medical care or healthcare for more than a couple days, something that your family can provide, is like 80%. It’s a really, really high number. So what does that insurance do exactly and how do those work? What’s the difference between short term and long term?

Tiffany Grant:

So these are both for if you need care and let’s say you can’t go to work or something like that, they’ll cover your salary, not all of your salary. So I’ll get to that. But short term is typically if it’s less than a year and then long term is if it’s over a year. And so depending on the plan, sometimes it’s 60%, sometimes it’s 80%. I personally have never seen where they cover 100% but not to say it’s not out there, just take a look at your documents.

What happens is, in the same situation, well a different person but similar situation, they knew that they were going to be out because they had a surgery and stuff coming up. So they signed up for the short term care and that way they were able to get those payments from the insurance company that covered some of their salary. They weren’t taking a full hit when they went out for that short time.

So what that would look like, how you would utilize that is, let’s say for instance you have a surgery or something coming up. Sign up for the short term care, sign up for the hospital care and then also once you do it, sign up for FMLA, Family Medical Leave Act, where your job is actually secured for the time that you’re going to be out.

So I have seen FMLA definitely help people as they were coming back and sometimes your employer will also offer paid leave for medical and stuff like that. Definitely talk to your HR department if that is something that happens to you where you have to be out for an extended period of time. See if you can get access to the FMLA and especially if it’s paid and you can also stack the FMLA paid leave through your employer and the insurance paid leave because they’re two different things. So just keep all of that in mind. I know it’s a lot.

Eric Rosenberg:

I give another shout out to just having that long term care and short term care if you need it. My dad a few years ago was diagnosed with cancer. That was a big surprise and he did end up needing to use those policies. So we actually had a healthcare aid come into our house and we submitted receipts and got that reimbursed or partially reimbursed, a percentage.

So for our family that was something we did have to use and it was not a fun experience going through it. Working with the insurance companies was a nightmare but I’m really glad we had it because that gave my family the ability to get my dad better care when he needed it and that was a good thing.

Tiffany Grant:

And then also keep in mind, like I said, you don’t have to sign up for all of these today. If it’s something that you know is coming up then of course go ahead and sign up for it but a lot of times people sign up for these benefits and then end up not even using it or needing it. So going back to being strategic, just make sure you’re strategic with what benefits you sign up for.

Eric Rosenberg:

There are more benefits and every employer is different. So you might see things like vision and dental insurance are not included in health insurance, which we didn’t really talk about, but that’s another thing to think about. Some employers might offer… When I worked at one company I got a bus pass or transit pass through work so I got a discount and it was pre-tax so it saved me on tax and I took the light rail train to work every day in Denver.

So there’s lots of different creative benefits, we mentioned a lot of them, but your employer might offer something local for where you live that might be helpful. That wouldn’t matter if somewhere else it might offer something that’s really good for people who work in your industry or your area there. There’s so many different customizable things out there and of course I have to shout out to the Payactiv benefit.

A lot of employers, the savviest ones, I like that word, savvy, are offering that. There’s a whole suite of things you can get out of that including early access to your earned paycheck. That’s called EWA, Earned Wage Access, and all sorts of other financial wellness tools. So it’s like a whole financial wellness platform for employees.

And there’s also health wellness platforms offered by some companies. I remember one company I worked at, they gave us free access to a platform that had weight loss resources and smoking secession, that’s a fancy term for quitting smoking resources, had other things to encourage you to be healthier. They had a step challenge where if you had a one of those watches that tracked your steps, the people who stepped the most in a period got a gift card or something. That’s a benefit, that’s free money to whatever store they got the gift card to that came from going to work and because they took advantage, they got it and because they knew about it, they got it.

So I think if I were going to summarize everything we talked about today, there were a lot of details, but it’s learn about your benefits. Take the time, whether it’s through your company, hopefully you have helpful HR resources and people who are as good as Tiffany in your HR department to break everything down and talk you through it and if you do have people like that at your company, I find they’re really excited to help you. They want to be that resource. Their eyes light up when someone comes and says, “Tell me about my benefits,” because that’s what they are working on all year and they want you to take advantage. They’re not there trying to not help you. That’s what HR is for, they’re trying to help you.

So definitely take advantage in this perspective. Don’t look at them like Michael Scott did in the office. HR is your friend for benefits.

Tiffany Grant:

Thank you for saying that.

Eric Rosenberg:

Totally. And if you don’t have that then you can you go online. There are many, many places, like this podcast and the blog from Payactiv. And there are podcasters like Tiffany out there who have excellent shows who can teach you all sorts of things about finance. So as we’re wrapping up here, Tiffany, could you share with us a little bit more about what you do and how you help people with their money today online?

Tiffany Grant:

Absolutely. So you can find me at moneytalkwitht.com. That’s where you’ll find the blog. That’s where you’ll find the podcast. So thank you so much for having me on, Eric.

Eric Rosenberg:

Thank you for being here. It’s like I always say, personal finance is exciting. Those of us who are following on social media, maybe TikTok or Instagram, seeing the video clip, they’re seeing my, I Love Finance hat here. Tiffany’s wearing her Money Nerds Unite shirt. We were at a conference together a couple years ago where they gave those out. So we really do love this stuff. Your money is something that a lot of people, their eyes glaze over, they think it’s boring, they think it’s not that important or they blame it for why they can’t do the things in their life.

But I’d say those in Tiffany and I shoes, we’d say if you take advantage of your money and take control of it and really understand it, you can use it to do those things you want in your life rather than have it be the thing that holds you back. So this is one of those most important places. Your benefits can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even more if you have health issues come up or if you really take good advantage of your retirement plans over the years, that all adds up. That’s huge money that comes back to you. It might feel small, but it adds up to a lot over time.

So make sure you’re taking advantage of benefits. Do you have any other closing words on benefits, Tiffany?

Tiffany Grant:

Really quick, I’ll just point out since you gave me the floor, you can find your benefits as well in your employee handbook. You can ask your HR department for benefits at a glance. Usually they have a portal, sometimes they have paper, but there’s a lot of resources where you can find what benefits are available and just a brief snippet of what they’re about. Typically in the employee handbook, so check there too.

Eric Rosenberg:

Awesome. Well thank you so much and thank you everyone for sticking with us. I know we got into some tough acronyms here but they’re good ones to know and if you use them right, you can use them to improve your finances and that’s what we’re all about here.

So thank you everyone and thank you so much Tiffany.

Tiffany had so much great information to share with us. I love learning from her and if you want to, this might be one you go back and listen to again, taking notes. If there were any specific benefits that we talked about that you want to make sure you sign up for or check into to see if your company offers it, that’s a great idea. And if you have any questions, as we said, you can always reach out to your HR department or your manager to learn more and make sure you’re getting the best of what your company has to offer.

And that ties into what we have to offer from Payactiv. We have a full financial wellness platform. Many employers offer it as a benefit included in their employment package. We hope you get that from your company but if not, you can still sign up on your own. There are a ton of things you can get without paying a penny. So head over to Payactiv, that’s P-A-Y-A-C-T-I-V. Search for that in the Apple App Store or the Android Google Play Store. Wherever you go find apps and make sure you download Payactiv because we want to be a part of that benefits package for you too.

So as always, thank you for sticking with us. Thanks for listening to the end and we will talk to you next time. Have a great day and keep on living that life you’ve earned. Bye bye.