Brandt Wealth Management of Raymond James

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Brandt Wealth Management of Raymond James Fiduciary, financial planning firm, focused on investment management, 401k education, and retirement

Raymond James financial advisors may only conduct business with residents of the states and/or jurisdictions for which they are properly registered. Therefore, a response to a request for information may be delayed. Please note that not all of the investments and services mentioned are available in every state. Investors outside of the United States are subject to securities and tax regulations within their applicable jurisdictions that are not addressed on this site. Contact your local Raymond James office for information and availability. Please follow this link to additional disclosures: http://raymondjames.com/smrja.htm
Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC

10/23/2026

What Happens to Your 401(k) When You Change Jobs?

The average person changes jobs a dozen times in a career. Every time, there's a 401(k) decision to make — and the most expensive option is also the most tempting.

You generally have four choices: leave it where it is, roll it into your new employer's plan, roll it into an IRA, or cash it out. Let's talk about that last one, because cashing out is where the damage happens.

Say you're 35 with $10,000 in an old 401(k) and you cash it out. First, the plan withholds 20% for federal taxes right off the top — $2,000 gone immediately. Then, because you're under 59½, you owe a 10% early withdrawal penalty: another $1,000. And the full $10,000 counts as taxable income, so in a 22% bracket that's $2,200 in income tax (with $2,000 already withheld toward it). You net roughly $6,800 of your $10,000 — and you've robbed your 65-year-old self of what that $10,000 would have become, which at a hypothetical 7% over 30 years is over $76,000.

A rollover, by contrast, costs you nothing in taxes or penalties if done correctly — a direct rollover from the old plan to the new plan or an IRA. The money keeps growing, uninterrupted.

So when you change jobs: don't cash it out, don't ignore it. Roll it over. And if you've got old 401(k)s from jobs past just sitting there, consolidating them is one of the simplest cleanups in personal finance.

10/21/2026

When Did You Last Check Your 401(k) Beneficiaries?

Here's something most people don't know: the beneficiary designation on your 401(k) overrides your will. Not "is considered alongside" — overrides. If your 401(k) still names your ex-spouse from a decade ago, your ex-spouse gets the money, no matter what your will says.

Life changes fast. You get married, have kids, get divorced, a parent passes. And through all of it, that beneficiary form you filled out on your first day of work just sits there, frozen in time, quietly becoming wrong.
This one hits especially hard for parents. If you had kids after you were hired and never updated the form, your children aren't on it. If something happened to you, the money goes to whoever you named back when — maybe a sibling, maybe a former partner — and your kids' share gets sorted out the hard way.

The fix takes five minutes. Log into your 401(k), find the beneficiaries section, and read the names. Are they current? Do the percentages still reflect what you want? While you're at it, name a contingent beneficiary — the backup who inherits if your primary beneficiary isn't around.

Then do the same for your life insurance and any IRAs. Same rule everywhere: the designation on the account beats the will, every time.

Five minutes. Do it this week.

10/21/2026

What's Your 401(k) Actually Invested In?

Quick: without looking, what is your 401(k) invested in? If your answer is "uh... the default?" — you're in good company. Most people never change the default investment, which is usually a target-date fund.

Target-date funds aren't bad. They're diversified, they get more conservative as you approach retirement, and for most people they're a perfectly reasonable choice. But "reasonable default" and "right for you" aren't the same thing, and there's one number worth checking regardless: the expense ratio.

The expense ratio is the annual fee the fund charges, expressed as a percentage. Here's why it matters. Take a $100,000 balance growing at a hypothetical 7% for 30 years. In a fund charging 0.10%, you end up with roughly $740,000. In a fund charging 1.00% — less than one percentage point more — you end up with roughly $574,000. That tiny-sounding fee difference cost you about $166,000.

Same market. Same 30 years. $166,000 evaporated into fees.

So log in, find your holdings, and look at the expense ratio on each fund. Anything over 0.50% deserves a question mark; anything over 1.00% deserves a hard look at whether there's a cheaper equivalent in your plan. Your plan's fund lineup almost always includes lower-cost index options — most people just never switch.

Fees are the one part of investing you can control. Control them.

10/20/2026

Your 3% Contribution Isn't Going to Cut It

If you were auto-enrolled in your 401(k), there's a good chance you're contributing 3% of your pay. That number wasn't chosen because it's enough. It was chosen because it's low enough that nobody opts out.

Here's the math on what 3% actually does. On a $70,000 salary, 3% is $2,100 a year. Over 30 years at a hypothetical 7% growth, that's about $212,000. Sounds like real money — until you compare it to 10%: $7,000 a year growing to roughly $708,000 over the same 30 years. Same salary, same time horizon, nearly half a million dollars of difference. The only thing that changed was the contribution rate.

Financial planners generally suggest 10 to 15% of your income going toward retirement, including the employer match. So if your employer matches 3% and you contribute 7%, you're at 10% total. That's the target to work toward.

You don't have to jump from 3% to 10% tomorrow. But you should have a plan to get there — which is exactly what the next post in this series is about. (Hint: it's a 1% trick that you'll barely feel.)

Check your contribution rate today. If it still says 3% from the day you were hired, it's been quietly shortchanging you ever since.

10/15/2026

Are You Leaving Free Money on the Table?

Your employer's 401(k) match is the closest thing to free money in personal finance. And a surprising number of people walk right past it.

Here's how it usually works. A common formula is a 50% match on the first 6% of your pay. Let's run the numbers on a $70,000 salary. Six percent of your pay is $4,200 a year — that's what you put in. Your employer then adds 50% of that: $2,100, straight into your account. That's a $2,100 raise you only get if you contribute.

Now here's the painful part: if you only contribute 3%, the match is calculated on 3%. You put in $2,100, the employer adds $1,050 — and you just left $1,050 of free money on the table. Every single year.

Over 30 years, that $1,050 a year left behind, growing at a hypothetical 7%, is over $100,000 you never got. Not from market genius. From a form you didn't fill out.

So check two things today: what's your current contribution rate, and what's your employer's match formula? If you're contributing less than the full match threshold, that's the single highest-return move in your financial life — an instant 50% return, which no investment on earth reliably offers.

Not sure what your plan's formula is? It's in your summary plan description, or just ask HR. And if you want help running your numbers, message me.

10/14/2026

Do You Know Where Your 401(k) Actually Lives?

Here's a question that stumps more people than you'd think: if I asked you to log into your 401(k) right now, could you?

For a lot of people the honest answer is no. The account was set up during onboarding three jobs ago, the login went to an old email, and the statements go somewhere unopened. There are billions of dollars sitting in forgotten 401(k)s in this country, and some of it belongs to people who just lost track.

So here's your homework this week, and it takes ten minutes. First, find your current plan: ask HR or check your benefits portal for the name of the recordkeeper — it'll be someone like Fidelity, Vanguard, Empower, or Principal. Log in and confirm your balance, your contribution rate, and your investments. Second, think about old jobs: did you leave a 401(k) behind at a former employer? Call their HR department and ask where the plan is held.

A 401(k) you can't log into is a 401(k) you can't manage. And unmanaged money has a way of underperforming — wrong investments, old beneficiaries, fees you never noticed. Ten minutes this week. Future you says thanks.

Questions about what you're looking at once you're logged in? Send me a message — I walk people through this stuff every day.

10/09/2026

“The account you forgot about"

There's a decent chance you have a 401(k) sitting at a company you left years ago.
Job changes, moves, new email addresses — the statements stop coming and the account just... sits there. Millions of Americans have old 401(k)s they've lost track of.

Here's the thing: that money is still yours, and it's still invested (or sitting in something). But nobody's watching it the way they should — not your old employer, and probably not you.

First step isn't moving anything. It's finding it. Old pay stubs, old HR departments, the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits — the account is out there with your name on it.

When's the last time you checked on yours?

Thanks for sharing! Burlington Historical Society Museum
09/16/2026

Thanks for sharing! Burlington Historical Society Museum

05/07/2026

The 5 years before you retire are the most financially dangerous of your life.

Not the years after. The years before.

Why? Because almost every decision you make in that window has compounding consequences for the next 30 years. Get them right, and retirement is a victory lap. Get them wrong, and you spend your 70s wishing you’d done things differently.

After working with clients for years, here are the 5 most expensive mistakes I see people make — and what to do instead:

𝟏. 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲

Claiming at 62 instead of 70 can cost you over $100,000 in lifetime benefits, sometimes much more. Yes, there are good reasons to claim early (health issues, immediate income needs), but most people do it out of fear or habit. Run the math first.

𝟐. 𝐈𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐑𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬

There’s a magic window between retirement and age 73 (when RMDs kick in) where your taxable income often drops dramatically. That’s the cheapest time you’ll ever convert traditional IRA dollars to Roth. Skip this window, and you’re handing the IRS money you didn’t need to. Worse — when one spouse passes away, the survivor gets pushed into single-filer brackets and the tax bill explodes. Roth conversions help solve for that, too.

𝟑. 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐤

If you’ve worked at the same company for 25 years, there’s a good chance more of your net worth is tied to that one stock than you realize. I’ve seen people walk into retirement with 40, 50, even 60% of their portfolio in their employer’s stock. One bad earnings cycle can rewrite your retirement plan. Concentration built your wealth. Diversification protects it.

𝟒. 𝐍𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐱 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧

Most people have an investment plan. Very few have a tax plan. They’re not the same thing. A real tax plan answers: Which accounts do I withdraw from first? When do I trigger capital gains? How do I manage my Medicare premiums (IRMAA)? When do I do Roth conversions? Without a plan, you’ll likely overpay in taxes by tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over your retirement.

𝟓. 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭

This is the big one. Most people spend more time planning a two-week vacation than they do planning a 30-year retirement. They assume they’ll “figure it out” when the time comes. But the 5 years before retirement are when the planning has to happen — not after you’ve already pulled the trigger. Once you retire, your options narrow fast.

30+ years ago, my dad Clay started Brandt Wealth Management with a simple idea: treat people’s money like it’s your own....
05/05/2026

30+ years ago, my dad Clay started Brandt Wealth Management with a simple idea: treat people’s money like it’s your own.

Here you’ll find:

Plain-English takes on retirement & taxes

Lessons from 30+ years of fiduciary planning

Common money mistakes — and how to avoid them

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116 North Pine Street
Burlington, WI
53105

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Tuesday 8am - 4pm
Wednesday 8am - 4pm
Thursday 8am - 4pm
Friday 8am - 4pm

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