What does Financial Planning for Facial Plastic Surgery Look Like? Let’s think about some scenarios.
You are in your 20s or 30s
You’ve decided you want to look your best. Maybe you are going in for baby Botox and filler and you’ve started microneedling. You listen to your mom and wear sunscreen and you’ve even added a nightly skincare routine. You’ve watched an explosion of options in aesthetic procedures and surgery keep the rich and famous beautiful and youthful beyond their years, with a few notable exceptions which we will not go into for the purposes of this article. It’s probable you even watched your mom dip into her retirement savings to pay to reset the aging clock with her own facial plastic surgery. Guess what, now is the best time for you to start planning to save for that very same set of surgeries.
Facial Plastic Surgery Math
You’ve started investing into your work 401K and you have a budget for your hair, nails, Botox, filler and skincare products. You are wearing “I want to be a boss” clothes and starting to order expensive glasses of wine at dinner. Grandma just gave you a gift of $5000 and you are trying to decide what vacation to go on. But wait, think about investing it for your future face needs. Let’s make the safe assumption that most people that take care of their skin in their 20s and 30s will want their facial overhaul in their 50s. The typical surgical overhaul may include a combination of procedures such as a deep-plane facelift, upper and or lower blepharoplasty, facial fat volume replacement, laser resurfacing and a lip lift. As we know, the price will increase over time so let’s assume you will want to have up to $50,000 available to choose the combination of procedures to best meet your aesthetic needs.
What should you do?
Take grandma’s gift and turn it over to an investment advisor. Tell them you want $50,000 in 20 years and based on an 8% moderate growth rate, you can take your $5000 add 600 dollars a year to your facial plastics fund and pull out what you need in twenty years for your facial plastic surgery rejuvenation surgeries.
You are in your 40s
You used to be great at self-care, but the kids devour all of your extra time. You haven’t gotten a pedicure in months and your hair is in desperate need of highlights. You get Botox once or twice a year when you find the time between work and picking up Charlie from school. You can afford most of the things you need, but finding the time for self-care is the tricky part. Your mom’s face is starting to look back at you in the mirror and you’ve found time to go in for a few non-surgical touch ups to look less tired. You rededicate yourself to prioritizing you and realize you are probably 10 years away from needing a major overhaul. Your kids want to do Disney again, but you can barely muster the energy for the local zoo.
What should you do?
Take that $15,000 you would have spent on a Disney vacation to your investment advisor. Tell them you want $50,000 in 10 years so that when Annie goes off to college you can book your facial plastic rejuvenation vacation. Based on the same 8% moderate growth rate, you’ll need to add approximately 1200 dollars per year to your investment.
While some of this is in jest, the reality is this is an area many women want to spend future dollars. Financial planners often ask us about kids’ college costs and other big-ticket items in our future such as weddings, cars, and even vacations. But they rarely ask about your plastic surgery plans. While medical cost is usually discussed in planning for medical need or elder care dollars, rarely are you prompted to think about saving for facial plastic surgery. Some of our more forward-thinking financial planners have started to add this discussion when they talk to their clients about long term financial desires.
Find an Advisor that understands your needs
I spoke to Heather Reich, private advisor and founding member of Jeter Reich Wealth Partners at Rockefeller Global Family Office. She gave me the general financial understanding for how to calculate my above scenarios and suggested that a traditional brokerage account will allow ultimate flexibility with investments, even allowing borrowing against your investments at attractive interest rates for things such as facial plastic rejuvenation surgery.
For the purposes of this article, I chose the moderate 8% growth rate as that most closely reflects the average stock market return over the last 30 years.
Traditional brokerage account: Things to keep in mind
- Investment options are virtually unlimited
- No time limits or restrictions on moving money with deposits/ withdrawals
- Gains are taxed as realized throughout the normal cycle of trading within the account
- Gains are taxed at short term capital gains rates (if the position is held less than 1 year) or long-term capital gains rates (if the position is held longer than 1 year)
- Short term capital gains rates are = to your ordinary income tax rate
- Long term capital gains rate are = 20% max
If you want to start from a set starting value without additional contributions, below compares various growth strategies.
| Starting Value | Interest Rate % | # years | Contribution/ Yr | Future Value | Risk Tolerance | |||
| $ 30,695.00 | 5% | 10 | $ – | $ 50,000.00 | Conservative | |||
| $ 23,159.00 | 8% | 10 | $ – | $ 50,000.00 | Low Average | |||
| $ 16,098.00 | 12% | 10 | $ – | $ 50,000.00 | Within Reach |
