Planning Ideas For A New Year

By Leap Systems

The holidays are over. Decorations have been put away. New Year’s Eve has come and gone and it’s the start of a new year. When speaking with friends and co-workers, here is a list of the most common good practices to make sure your year gets off to a good start.

Review investment and retirement accounts and any insurance products you own.

As you review your overall finances, ensure your asset allocations are still what you expect them to be. By doing this, you can make sure you are taking the right amount of risk.

Take stock of your subscriptions. 

Too often, you sign up for a new streaming service subscription and totally forget about it. Purging the ones you don’t need can save you hundreds of dollars this year. A good way of doing this is by reviewing your credit card bill and checking what has been charged each month. Don’t forget to consider monthly software subscriptions you may have signed up for to accomplish a task and left active.

Get your passwords in order. 

You’ve surely got dozens or more passwords for various apps and services. Take some time to write them down all in one place. You can also use a password manager such as LastPass or 1Password.

Organize your tax documents. 

Tax season will be here before we know it. Now is an excellent time to ensure your workplace and brokerage platforms have all the correct mailing information to send you your tax forms. For those who do not email the documents anymore, you can go online and start printing them out. It’s good practice to keep a folder of all of your records for tax purposes (i.e. donation receipts, sewer bills, real estate and school tax bills…).

Set up auto deposit. 

If you automatically put a portion of your paycheck directly into your retirement or savings account, you probably won’t even miss it, or be tempted to spend it frivolously. If you currently are not doing this, now is a great time to set that up!

Look at the calendar. 

Expecting any significant expenses in 2024? Try to plan out what events are coming up — real estate tax payments, vacations, annual home and vehicle insurance payments — to determine which months ahead might be more costly than others. Advanced planning can help you budget accordingly so you’re not blindsided with an unexpectedly large credit card bill during the year.

Here’s to a great 2024!