Three Ways To Invest Money in 2020

This post is sponsored by ABLEnow®, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

If there is one thing we've learned from 2020, it's that saving for financial emergencies and our future is critically important. While we've remained unscathed through much of the turmoil this year has brought, we saw the crushing reality for many friends as they've been furloughed, laid off, and have had to rely on whatever financial cushion they've had to support their families. This has lit a huge fire under Derek and I to get our finances straightened out more than ever, so that we can be prepared for whatever hardships, or typical life events that may come our way.

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1) Invest More Regularly in our ABLEnow ® Account:

When Kinsley was three, we opened an ABLEnow savings account for her. These accounts are administered through Virginia529, the nation’s largest college savings plan. The benefit to ABLEnow accounts is that they're specifically for people with disabilities. The funds in these accounts can be used to pay for medical expenses that insurance won't cover, home repairs to make our house more accessible, educational tutors to come into our home and work with Kinsley, and so much more.

The major benefit to these plans is that they cannot count against Kinsley and her public benefits. Kinsley is currently on Medicaid, which is a huge financial benefit to us as her medical care costs upwards of $10,000 per year. Most Medicaid programs look at your savings and assets when determining qualification and if you have too much in savings you can get denied for Medicaid programs. With ABLEnow accounts you can save for your child's future without it working against you in terms of your Medicaid benefits that your child may be receiving. This gives us so much peace of mind knowing that we're able to have Kinsley’s medical needs covered while still being able to save for her future.

You can take an online eligibility quiz here to see if you or someone you know is eligible for an ABLEnow account.

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Because we just purchased a new home that will likely need a few accessibility modifications in the future (more accessible shower, small ramps to get in and out of the home, etc...), we're making a goal to invest more regularly in this account so that when Kinsley is older and needs those modifications made, we'll be able to have that money tucked away and ready when the time comes.

I also love that these accounts can be used for things insurance may not cover. Insurance only covers one wheelchair every five years, but if Kinsley outgrew a wheelchair before then, we could use the money in her account to fund a new chair for her. Same with walkers, crutches, or other mobility devices she may need or use in the future.

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2) Purchase a Home:

As mentioned earlier, we purchased a home this year. Part of our reason for doing this was to have a long-term investment that would make us more money in the future. Where we live the housing market is crazy, and home values are increasing more and more each month. We sold our previous home last year, and this summer our friends who lived a couple doors down in a smaller floor plan are selling their home for $30k more than we sold ours for just a year earlier. While homeownership may not be a long-term goal for some, we're looking forward to staying in our current home for years and years to come to be able to build that equity to put towards retirement in the future.

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3) Increase Contributions to Retirement Accounts:

Before we got on Medicaid last year, we never had extra money laying around to invest how we'd like. When you're spending $10k/year on medical expenses, it doesn't leave much left to be invested. Up until recently we hadn't even been able to maximize Derek's employee match program for retirement savings because we literally needed every bit of income we could get. Now that these bills aren't crippling in a way that they used to be, we plan on taking full advantage of our other retirement programs and investing the maximum-match amounts each month.

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Now that I'll also be teaching this fall, we plan on purging most of my income directly into both Kinsley's ABLEnow® account, and my retirement funds as well. This has really been the year where we've gotten a lot of our financial ducks in a row, and we really want to take advantage of that momentum to make sure our family is secure and ready for whatever happens in our future. ABLEnow gives us so much peace of mind knowing we can secure a future for Kinsley and whatever her needs may look like long after we're gone.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of ABLEnow.

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