Are You Maximizing Your Employer Benefits? Where a Plan Changes the Answer
For the professionals I work with at Melby Wealth Management, the employer match is rarely the part they are missing. By the time someone is earning well, they have usually figured out to contribute at least enough to capture it. The bigger opportunity, and the bigger leak, is everything above the match that a busy high earner never gets around to optimizing.
As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® (CFP®) professional running a fee-only fiduciary firm in Nashville, my goal in writing this is to show where a plan turns a decent benefits package into a genuinely optimized one, and where you can handle the basics yourself.
The Match Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling
The starting point is the same for everyone. The most common match is 50% of contributions up to 6% of salary, and capturing it in full is a guaranteed return no market can match. On a $70,000 salary, that match runs about $2,100 a year, and invested over a 30-year career at a 5.8252% real return in a 90/10 portfolio, it grows to $161,003 in today's dollars. For my clients, that math is settled. The questions that actually move their plan come next.
For 2026, you can defer up to $24,500 of your own salary, while the combined employee-and-employer ceiling is $72,000. The gap between those two numbers is where most high earners leave value unused.
Where Coordination Changes the Outcome
For most clients in this situation, the real value shows up in three places that a benefits portal will not flag for you.
First, asset location. Holding the right investments in the right accounts, tax-deferred, Roth, and taxable, can meaningfully change your after-tax outcome without changing your investments at all. Second, the traditional-versus-Roth decision, which depends on your bracket now versus your expected bracket later, not on a rule of thumb. Third, the after-tax contribution and in-plan conversion strategy known as the mega backdoor Roth. If your plan allows after-tax contributions beyond the $24,500 deferral limit and permits in-plan Roth conversions, you can move large sums into Roth up to that $72,000 ceiling. It is one of the most powerful tools available, and it is also easy to execute incorrectly, which is exactly the kind of thing I would generally coordinate rather than leave to a portal default.
A concrete example of what that coordination looks like. A client earning $200,000 is already deferring the full $24,500 and capturing a $9,000 match, for $33,500 going in. That leaves real room under the $72,000 ceiling. If their plan permits after-tax contributions and conversions, we can direct a meaningful sum into Roth each year that would otherwise have sat in a taxable account growing less efficiently. Paired with deciding which holdings belong in the Roth versus the taxable account, the same savings produce a materially larger after-tax balance over twenty years, with no extra dollar saved. That gap is invisible on a benefits portal, and it is the kind of thing a plan is built to catch.
There is also vesting to track. Your own contributions are always yours, but the match may take three to six years to fully own under a cliff or graded schedule. For clients weighing a job change or an equity-comp offer, I factor unvested employer money into the decision, because leaving a few months early can forfeit real dollars.
Putting Equity Comp and Benefits in One Plan
A growing share of the households I work with have more than a salary and a match. They have restricted stock units, an employee stock purchase plan, a bonus, or an HSA they are treating like a checking account instead of a stealth retirement vehicle. Each of those interacts with the others and with your tax picture. The value of a plan is making them work together, sequencing contributions, conversions, and sales so the whole package is optimized rather than each piece managed in a silo.
When Professional Guidance Adds Value Here
If your situation is a salary and a match, capturing the full match and aiming for a 12% to 15% total savings rate gets you most of the way, and the consumer version of this post covers it. Guidance starts to earn its fee when the picture includes after-tax contributions, equity compensation, multiple account types, a higher tax bracket, or a job change with unvested money on the line. At that point the question is no longer "am I getting the match." It is "is my entire compensation package working as hard as I am."
For the consumer-facing version of this post, head over to Melby Money.
Most people who schedule a conversation with us have never worked with a financial advisor before. That is exactly who we work with. If you want to make sure your full benefits package is working as hard as it can, schedule a financial planning conversation.
About The Author
Shaun Melby, CFP® provides fee-only financial planning and investment management services in Nashville, TN through his company Melby Wealth Management. Shaun has over 15 years of experience as a financial advisor in Nashville. Shaun created Melby Money to educate the public about finances.
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