I work for a living

Your money, understood

Six lessons. Each one uses your numbers, asks you to do something, and ends with one real thing to go do. About five minutes each, in any order, though this is the order the numbers build in.

1. Lesson 1
   Money you can lose, money you cannot

   Before anything else, there is one line to draw: money you might need soon, and money you will not touch for years.

2. Lesson 2
   The money your employer is offering you

   Many employers add money to your retirement account when you do.

3. Lesson 3
   What your fund charges you, in dollars

   Every fund takes a fee, quietly, out of your returns.

4. Lesson 4
   Two jars, one tax bill

   Traditional: you put money in, your taxable income goes down now, and you pay tax when you take it out later.

5. Lesson 5
   What a bad year would do to you

   Stocks have fallen a third or more several times in living memory.

6. Lesson 6
   Read the papers you were given

   Your plan has a document that says the match, the vesting, the fees, and the rules.

Each lesson asks for one number, one piece of arithmetic, and one real mission, and keeps your answers on My steps.

Five quick questions before you start mark where you began; the same five after show what the road did.