Financial Advice From Brooklyn
Plans as Seen in the Press

Founder and Chief Planner Kristen Euretig, CFP® is available for commentary and interviews. For more information, download our press kit below.

"Euretig helps these young female professionals with everything from
personalized financial planning to investment management."

“But before you start to feel guilty for any frivolous spending, Euretig says to keep in mind that it makes perfect sense for your spending to increase along with your daily freedoms.”

When planning a budget for eating out, you can include tips as part of that line item to monitor expenditures. As always, make sure your debt obligations and emergency fund are taken care of before planning for entertainment.

The services [Buy Now, Pay Later] are designed to remove as much friction from the checkoutprocess as possible, which can make spontaneous purchases easier and faster, says Ms. Euretig.

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Fear Of Finances? 4 Things You Can Do To Get On Track

Financial planning is stressful. For many, it seems easier to avoid the subject than get started with a sound strategy. Kristen Euretig, a certified financial planner and founder and CEO of Brooklyn Plans, focuses on getting clients over their psychological hurdles and introducing them to the “exciting and interesting and empowering” benefits of financial planning.

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“Turnover is expensive. Hiring a new person is expensive. That power has translated to employees.”

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Ms. Euretig recommends thinking of rent as part of your fixed cost bundle. If you are paying more on rent but less on other fixed costs, such as utility bills or car insurance, then you can budget for higher rent. The important thing is to keep your fixed-cost expenses at half of your take-home pay, she said.

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Low-interest rates allowed a young New Yorker to retire her card debt and still pay less on her co-op loan.

“There’s this perception that you have to have money to get financial advice, so it’s kind of a Catch 22.”

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Move slowly When you come into money, “the first thing to do is nothing,” says Brooklyn-based financial planner Kristen Euretig. Like me, many people have been mentally spending their imagined fortune for years, but it’s important to pause before turning those dreams into reality.

“A pet is a big commitment and requires resources on multiple fronts: time-wise, financially and emotionally.”

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“A lot of times we don’t think about it as part of our regular monthly expenses, our monthly bills,” financial planner Kristen Euretig said. “When we have a lot of subscriptions, it drives up our fixed costs every month.”

Depending on the situation, someone could still be on track for retirement without having twice their salary saved by 35, while others would need more than that, Euretig said. She added that variables including inheritances, life goals, and property purchases should all be taken into account.

“I find for a lot of clients the source of anxiety is the unknown and the lack of clarity, which can sometimes best be resolved by getting a good handle on what’s going on,”

“Saving is a long game, and it’s a situation where the tortoise wins every time”

Euretig specializes in advising people in their 20s and 30s in navigating their finances and says that, for many, facing up to the topic of finances is the hardest part. “Many young people see money as a complex, overwhelming, impossible thing, and because they feel they’re in the dark, many prefer to not to address finances at all,” she says.

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“Generally, most people would want to have just enough to meet their monthly costs and maybe a small cushion to have a bit of a buffer. Anything above and beyond that, we want to see our clients move to a high-yield savings account.”

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“A lot of times we don’t think about it as part of our regular monthly expenses, our monthly bills,” financial planner Kristen Euretig said. “When we have a lot of subscriptions, it drives up our fixed costs every month.”

“Euretig says if you’ve saved into a dedicated 529 plan (or qualified tuition plan) it is similar to a Roth IRA and you can take money out without penalties although you would be taxed on gains and face a penalty for not spending the money on higher education. Euretig says a quick look at the rates will show you the numbers don’t stack up.”

Many women, however, leave the financial planning up to their male partners, presuming that he will handle their finances better, Kristen Euretig, founder of Brooklyn Plans, a financial planning service that targets women, said. But why? “Research shows that women have a confidence gap when compared to men in terms of managing their money,” Euretig said.

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“Americans are resilient and ingenuitive — so many new services, apps, and all-around disruption to the finance industry came out of the last downturn. I suspect the same will come to pass with this one.”

Here’s why you should save for your retirement — if you can

“The reason retirement is really important is because you don’t want to be in a position where you have to work.”

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“I suggest starting with what you know you’ll earn and making a baseline plan with that,” says Euretig. To wrap your mind around how much money you’ll be able to spare each month to contribute to a retirement account, she recommends allotting the more variable aspects of your income into “buckets” by budgeting certain percentages for your monthly living expenses, taxes, and, finally, savings, and see how much money you might have left over.

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Euretig said winners shouldn’t “get too many designs about your next moves until you can work with a financial planner who will assemble your team of experts to best advise you on your options.”

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Perhaps my biggest takeaway from my time with Euretig was when she told me that even if you have credit card debt, it’s not always wise to throw all your money at the debt.

What’s more, as economies continue to re-open, some experts predict that inflation will likely push interest rates back up toward pre-pandemic levels due to an increase in spending. Translation: those low rates may not stick around much longer.

“I think of debt retainment as a stool with three legs. In order for it to be balanced, you have to do all three. Those include paying off debt, saving for emergencies and saving for your freedom fund,” says Euretig, “The thing about getting out of debt is to stop getting into it. It has to be coddled with savings. You can’t pay off and stay out of debt without saving for yourself.”