Carlson Capital Management

Integrated Wealth Management

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The Newlywed Financial Planning Checklist

Benjamin Carlson – Carlson Capital Management
Ben Carlson, CFP®

Associate Integrated Wealth Advisor and Paraplanner Team Lead
952.230.6702
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  I enjoy helping clients experience the joy of seeing their money in action.  

Professional Biography
Ben Carlson is an Associate Integrated Wealth Advisor and Paraplanner Team Lead at Carlson Capital Management. As part of the Advisory Team, Ben collaborates with clients and advisors across the firm on all aspects of planning and portfolio management. He is responsible for facilitating client meetings, preparing presentation materials and assisting with portfolio management. In addition, Ben engages with newly hired Paraplanners to mentor them in CCM's approach to integrated wealth management and culture of care, and is responsible for a strong working knowledge of and leveraging of firm technology to best serve clients.

Ben graduated magna cum laude from St. Olaf College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and History with a concentration in Finance. While at St. Olaf, Ben participated in four years of varsity tennis, served as team captain and was selected to the all-MIAC team for three years. In his junior and senior years, he participated as a peer tutor in principles of Accounting. Pursuing an entrepreneurial spirit, and after winning a start-up grant, Ben founded and operated Jolly Fly Fishing, LLC for three years, guiding summer fly fishing expeditions in western Wisconsin. Prior to joining CCM, Ben worked as an account representative for a large Twin Cities reinsurance brokerage company. Ben holds the Certified Financial Planner™ certification granted through the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

When not at work, Ben continues to enjoy fly fishing, playing tennis, and going to the cabin. He also enjoys being involved in the community and serves as a volunteer coach for an inner-city tennis program for their “Super Saturday” programs and is a member of the Rotary Club of Prior Lake. Ben grew up in Hastings, Minnesota and now lives in Prior Lake.

Personal Thoughts
At CCM, we take a great deal of care in learning about the personal background and financial goals of the clients we work with. As a part of this process, a question we often ask is, “Tell us about your first memory of money.” My first memory of money goes back to the lemonade stand I had when I was five years old. The house where I spent my childhood was situated in an oddity of city planning, the double cul-du-sac. One day, I decided to have a lemonade stand at the end of my parents' driveway. Needless to say, it was not very successful being tucked away in the back of a cul-du-sac. Somewhere along the line, I decided to put the lemonade stand on my red wagon and move it to the nearby street corner and out of the cul-du-sac. With the increased car and foot traffic on an actual road coupled with the generosity of passersby and an overly enthusiastic five-year-old attitude, my revenues increased substantially. I tucked every dollar bill away into an old leather wallet my grandfather passed down to me. The wallet was so old all the dollar bills stored inside the folds came out smelling like an antique store. At the end of the summer, I had had put $144 into that wallet, a number I still remember. One day, I asked my parents to bring me to Hastings Family Service (the local food shelf), where I plopped on the counter the entire sum I had made that summer.

When I think about this first money memory, for me it's reflecting on what I decided to do with it, and also about seeing money in action and experiencing the joy of hard work coming to fruition. With busy lives, we can all fall into thinking of money as strictly a financial, quantitative asset that we have worked hard to accumulate. While quantitative elements are of course, very important, part of the delight of working at CCM for me is experiencing the qualitative aspects of our approach to integrated wealth management. In looking at financial assets not only relative to their quantitative value, but as a tool to accomplish our goals in life, it helps our clients to experience the joy of seeing their money in action. And while I have grown and aged since my lemonade stand days, my enthusiastic attitude and passion in my approach to work has not.

Ben Carlson
Ben Carlson, CFP®
Associate Integrated Wealth Advisor and Paraplanner Team Lead

If you have been keeping up with the CCM newsletter lately, you may have noticed a record number of our colleagues have gotten married in the past 18 months, myself included. And if you or a recently married friend or family member are anything like me, you made a financial planning checklist immediately upon returning from the honeymoon.

All joking aside, there are many aspects around one’s financial life that can change after marriage, some of which are time sensitive. Below is a checklist for some of the action items to think about after marriage and the financial planning “why” behind them. We invite you to share this with friends and loved ones who will benefit from it.

  • W-4 Your tax filing status is dependent on your marital status on the last day of the tax year (December 31). As such, it is important to notify your employer of a change in filing status to ensure the amount withheld from your paycheck is in alignment.
  • CONTACT INFORMATION When you go through a name change, address change, or both, you will want to update this with your employer, financial institutions, and insurance companies. It is important to keep a copy of your marriage certificate on hand, as many institutions require this to change the name on record.
  • BENEFICIARY DESIGNATIONS Review and update your beneficiary designations, including your employer-sponsored retirement plan, life insurance policies, bank and investment accounts, and individual retirement accounts
  • ANALYZE EMPLOYER-PROVIDED BENEFITS Marriage is a qualifying event for employer-provided benefits, allowing you to make changes outside of open enrollment. This includes employer-provided health plans, disability insurance, and life insurance. A cost-benefit analysis of health care plans and the specific in-network providers, prescription costs, and Health Savings Account (HSA) eligibility should be considered. Additionally, it may be wise to look at some ancillary benefits, such as legal assistance. Some employers provide this as a benefit, which can reduce the cost of legal fees for updating your estate documents.
  • ESTATE DOCUMENTS It’s an opportune time to create or update wills, trusts, health care directives, and power of attorney documents. While some people will avoid this as it can be an unpleasant topic to think about, it is important to consider the toll on the surviving spouse if the documents don’t exist or if they aren’t current. Health care directives and power of attorney documents can help with medical situations, incapacity, and even ordinary transactions. It is important not only to have the documents, but to review the roles each spouse holds, such as trustee, agent, attorney-in-fact, or personal representative.
  • DEEDS Now is a perfect time to review the titling of property ownership and either title jointly or place transfer on death deeds on properties.
  • CREATE A BUDGET Whether you use a spreadsheet or data aggregation budgeting tools like Mint or Personal Capital, it is important to determine your household cash flow and develop a strategy to allocate any surplus toward items such as:
    • Establishing an Emergency Fund This is typically held in a bank account to maintain liquidity and is ideally equal to around 3-6 months of fixed expenses.
    • Pay Down High Interest Debt Personal debt (credit cards, car loans) and student loan debt may fall under this category.
    • Optimize Employer-sponsored Retirement Plans At a minimum, this means contributing to the matching amount up to the IRS limits ($20,500 in 2022 for defined contribution plans) if cash flow allows.
    • Contribute to Other Tax Preferential Accounts This includes contributing to Roth IRA and Health Savings Accounts.
  • CONSIDER LIFE AND DISABILITY INSURANCE There are several options in this category, including group coverage, permanent insurance, or term insurance. Many young couples look at term life insurance to cover income protection, outstanding liabilities, final expenses, and any future education expenses for their families.

If you or someone you know has any questions, we invite you to reach out to your CCM advisor for more information.


NOTE: The information provided in this article is intended for clients of Carlson Capital Management. We recommend that individuals consult with a professional adviser familiar with their particular situation for advice concerning specific investment, accounting, tax, and legal matters before taking any action.

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Published October 17, 2022 Topics: Financial Advisors, Financial Planning, Financial Planning for Women, Financial Planning for Young Adults

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