09/15/2026
Open enrollment is the highest-paid 30 minutes on your calendar, and most people click “same as last year” and leave real money behind. Open enrollment is the once-a-year window when you choose your employee benefits: your health insurance, your 401k match, your HSA or FSA. Miss it and you are locked in for a full year. The fastest raise you will get this year is not a bigger paycheck. It is already sitting in these benefits.
Here is how to claim it in three moves:
Take the whole match. If your employer offers a 401k match, contribute at least enough to get all of it. That is free money.
Pick on purpose. Re-check your health plan, your deductible, and your HSA or FSA for the year you are actually in.
Claim what’s yours. Use the telehealth, coaching, and coverage you already pay for.
Save this post so you have the three steps when you sit down to enroll. Then send it to one person about to click “same as last year.”
What benefit do you always forget to use? Drop it below.