What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm Saturday 9am - 5pm

Deidre Fernald, CFP

Home
United States
Clearwater, FL
Deidre Fernald, CFP

We create a plan around your life, with support to help you live for today & achieve your goals

09/02/2026

Not all benefits elections follow the same rules. While some changes can only be made during open enrollment, others may be updated throughout the year or after a qualifying life event.

Changes Typically Made During Open Enrollment

📋 Health Insurance Elections
Choosing or changing your medical plan, adding optional coverage, or moving between plan options is generally limited to open enrollment unless you experience a qualifying life event.

📋 Dental and Vision Coverage
Enrollment and plan changes are often restricted to the annual open enrollment period.

📋 Supplemental Benefits
Benefits such as critical illness, accident insurance, and other voluntary coverage options may only be elected or changed during open enrollment.

📋 Life and Disability Insurance Elections
Depending on your employer's plan, coverage amounts may be limited to open enrollment periods or may require additional underwriting outside of enrollment windows.

Changes That Can Often Be Made Outside of Open Enrollment

✅ 401(k) Contributions
Many employer-sponsored retirement plans allow you to increase, decrease, start, or stop contributions throughout the year.

✅ HSA Contributions
If you're enrolled in an eligible health plan, HSA contribution amounts can typically be adjusted at any time during the year.

✅ Beneficiary Designations
Beneficiaries for retirement accounts, life insurance, and other benefits can often be updated whenever your circumstances change.

✅ Changes Following a Qualifying Life Event
Events such as marriage, divorce, birth or adoption of a child, or loss of other health coverage may allow you to make benefits changes outside of open enrollment. These changes usually must be made within a specific timeframe after the event.

Your benefits play an important role in both your financial well-being and personal protection. Understanding which changes require open enrollment and which can be adjusted throughout the year can help you make more informed decisions and avoid missed opportunities.

09/01/2026

A high income looks impressive—but it’s not the full picture. You can have a high income but a negative net worth. Many of my clients come to me in that position!

Net worth tells the real story: what you own minus what you owe. You can earn a lot and still have very little to show for it if your expenses grow just as fast, or faster.

If you want a more accurate read on your financial progress, track your net worth over time. It’s not flashy, but it’s honest. Today is the first day of the month, let's do a net worth check in!

08/28/2026

Awe it's not so bad, you don't need to retire anyway!

Happy FriYAY!

08/27/2026

Have you noticed the interest rate on your savings account going down? And down...And down.

The interest rate on your debt however...still painfully high.

Some savings accounts, CDs and money market accounts that were paying 4%–5% not that long ago are starting to creep toward 3% or below.

Meanwhile…
Credit cards can still be 20%+.
Mortgage rates are still high.
Car loans are expensive.

So how does that make sense? Because there isn't just one "interest rate."

Savings rates are heavily influenced by short-term interest rates and what banks are willing to pay to attract your cash. When banks don't need deposits as badly, or expect short-term rates to eventually fall, they don't have much incentive to keep paying you 4% or 5%.

But the rates you pay to borrow have other things built into them: longer-term market rates, inflation expectations, credit risk, bank profit margins and the length of the loan.

That's why we can end up in this frustrating environment where:
The return on your cash falls faster than the cost of borrowing does.

And this is exactly why I don't want clients making financial decisions based solely on, "My savings account is paying X% and my loan costs Y%." We have to look at the whole picture.

How much cash do you actually need? What money needs to stay safe and liquid? What debt should you prioritize?

And at what point does keeping too much money sitting in cash stop making sense?
Interest rates change. Your financial plan should account for that.

08/26/2026

"We can afford this, right?"

08/25/2026

I wrote "Your Money, Your Plan" because personal finance can feel way more complicated than it needs to be.

There’s so much advice about what you’re *supposed* to do with money:
save more, spend less, invest this way, pay off that first.

But your financial plan should actually fit your life.

Your income.
Your family.
Your goals.
Your priorities.
And yes, the things you actually want to spend money on.

"Your Money, Your Plan" walks through the basics of creating a financial plan without making you feel like you need a finance degree to understand it.

And the message behind it is still the same one I use with clients today:

You don’t need to do everything perfectly. You just need to understand where you are, decide where you want to go, and make a plan to get there.

If you’ve been wanting to get a better handle on your money but aren’t quite ready to hire a financial planner, this is a great place to start! https://fernfinancialplanning.com/download-your-money-your-plan/

08/24/2026

Decision fatigue is real and it shows up in our finances.

Should I pay off this credit card or the loan?
Should I get gas today or wait a few days to see if the price goes down more?
Should we move?
Where should I save?
Can we afford the vacation?
When should I retire?
What is for dinner that won't cost $40?

When you're already juggling work, kids, schedules, bills and everything else, eventually you get tired of making decisions. And when you have major life events with decision after decision, it's exhausting.

So you put it off. Or make the easiest decision. Or keep doing what you've always done because figuring out something different feels like one more thing on the list.

This is one of the benefits of financial planning that doesn't get talked about enough.

A financial planner can help you slow things down, break big decisions into smaller ones, run the numbers, and figure out what actually needs your attention now and what can wait.

Sometimes you don't need more financial information.

You just need someone to help make all the decisions feel a little less overwhelming.

Thank you to Jess Veguez for this picture and helping me feel like a model. Miss you friend. ❤️

08/22/2026

I’ve completed the "Grief Literacy Certification for Professionals Training" through Soaring Spirits International. 💙

As a financial planner, I often work with people during some of life’s biggest transitions and sometimes those transitions come with profound loss.

With my dad passing away recently, I saw how hard it was on my mom. Soaring Spirits helped her in many ways and connected her with a community that understood what she was going through.

Grief can affect the way we process information, make decisions, communicate, and think about the future. This training helped me be better equipped to support friends, family and clients who are navigating loss while also facing important financial decisions.

This training doesn’t make me a grief counselor, nor is that my role. It helps me be someone who better understands the grieving process, communicates with greater care, and recognizes that sometimes good financial planning means knowing when to slow down and simply meet someone where they are.

Financial planning is about numbers, but it’s always been about people first. ❤️

Learn more about Soaring Spirits program https://soaringspirits.org

08/21/2026

Can't even afford a ladder in Florida anymore!

Happy FriYAY!!

08/20/2026

Ever notice how a raise or bonus doesn’t seem to improve your finances as much as you expect? It just gets absorbed or disappears quickly.

When spending increases as income rises, it’s called lifestyle creep. If you’ve fallen prey to lifestyle creep, it becomes harder to save, invest, or build long term financial security. Here’s how to overcome it:

✅ Pay yourself first
Automatically increase savings and retirement contributions when your income increases.

✅ Be intentional with upgrades
Enjoy your success but choose upgrades that truly add value to your life rather than spending out of habit.

✅ Review spending regularly
A quick check in on recurring expenses can uncover costs that no longer align with your priorities.

✅ Be intentional with your spending
Let your financial goals—not your paycheck—guide how much you spend.

Lifestyle creep isn’t about deprivation, it’s about awareness. With intention and consistency, income growth can translate into real financial progress.

Address

Clearwater, FL

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

+18135502133

Website

http://www.fernfinancialplanning.com/, https://calendly.com/dfernald/financial-planning-introduction?month=2024-10

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Deidre Fernald, CFP posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Deidre Fernald, CFP: