Happy Friday.
Thanks for being part of The Get Ready Money Club.
Here’s what to expect in this newsletter:
✅ Week #50 Action Item: Review end of year items
🗓️ Financial Calendar Reminders: Important dates and deadlines.
💭 The Get Ready Money Podcast with Zach Whelchel: Intentional Budgeting
🎉 Featured: Discovering Hidden Treasures While Sailing Through Year-End Finances
🤩 Tony Steuer Recommends
Ready to hop into this week’s Get Ready Update? Let’s go!
✅ Week #50 Action Item: Review end of year items.
🌎 The big picture: At the end of the year, there are important
money deadlines.
🤔 Why it matters: Why it matters: Meeting end-of-year deadlines can have a significant positive impact on your financial life.
💡 Here’s what works:
- Keep an eye on your holiday budget. While using credit cards is a great way to earn cash back or rewards, you’ll need to be sure that you can pay off the balance with your next statement so you can avoid high interest charges.
- Review your spending account balances. Dependent Care Spending Accounts (DCSAs) and many Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) have a “use it or lose it” policy. If you will have money left over, here are some applicable expenses for FSAs: vision (new glasses or contacts), chiropractic care, acupuncture, prescription medications, and mental health treatment (therapy).
- Make any year-end charitable donations to support your favorite nonprofits to make a positive difference and to be able to claim your tax deduction. Be sure to check whether your donation is tax deductible.
- Complete any gifts to people or trusts to take advantage of the annual gift tax exclusion. The annual gift tax exclusion limits increase each year.
- Review your IRA and 401(k) contributions and distributions. If you had to take a first required minimum distribution by April 1, you must take your second by December 31.
- Learn more on the IRS site at www.irs.gov.
- Medicare open enrollment typically ends on December 7. Open enrollment is generally the only time of year when you can make changes to your Medicare plans. Changes made during this period go into effect January 1 of the next year. Learn more at www.medicare.gov.
😎 Bottom line: Reviewing and completing end-of-year items will help you maximize your financial life.
💭 Habit of the week: See if you’re missing anything now that you’ve assembled the pieces.
🤔 Question(s) of the week: Are you able to meet end-of-year deadlines? What changes are you making?
💁♂️ Advisor/Coach Corner: Review year-end deadlines with your clients. Guide them with their options.
📝 Resources:
Get Ready Library and Toolkit members can access your resources for this week's action item (#50) from your dashboard (located in Monthly Focus Area 12: Wrap Up Loose Ends):
- The Get Ready Blueprint week 50 worksheet where you’ll review a detailed list of end of year items.
- Review relevant worksheets for your end of year items such as:
- Spending Accounts (Group Employee Benefits worksheet - week 40)
- Retirement Plan Contributions (week 36)
- Charitable Donations (week 48) and more.
Get Ready Money Club Members:
- The Get Ready Discussion Guide. Discuss year end items with your family and clients.
Access Your Get Ready Resources here
The Get Ready Library expands on each week’s action item and provides worksheets to help you complete each week’s action item, create a to-do list, track your habits and organize your financial life. It also includes access to all of my books (The Get Ready Bookshelf).
- The Get Ready Bookshelf: The Get Ready Blueprint, Get Ready!, Questions and Answers on Life Insurance, The Questions on Answers Life Insurance Workbook, The Questions and Answers on Disability Insurance Workbook, Insurance Made Easy and The Questions and Answers on Insurance Planner (pdf editions)
- The Get Ready Toolkit: 150+ worksheets to complete each week’s action items step by step, add your weekly goals, use the positive habit maker, create your weekly money to-do’s and organize your financial life (fillable PDF worksheets from The Get Ready Blueprint (52 worksheets) and fillable PDF’s & Excel from Get Ready! (100+ worksheets)).
Become a Get Ready Library Member
Source: The Get Ready weekly action item is from The Get Ready Blueprint: A 52 Week Guide to Changing The Way You Think About Money). Pick up your copy at your favorite online bookshop (Amazon)(bookshop.org).
🗓️ Financial Calendar Reminders: Important dates and deadlines.
- December 31: Flexible spending account (FSA) and dependent care spending account (DCSA) claim deadlines. Employers can extend the claim deadline for FSAs to March 15 of the following year. Your employer may allow you to carry over $500 in unused funds to the following year; if they do not, this is the “use it or lose it” date. Health savings accounts (HSAs) allow you to carry over your full balance.
- December 31: Complete any charitable donations.
- December 31: Contributions to employer-sponsored retirement plans (401(k), 403(b), 457, or federal thrift savings) must be completed.
- December 31: If you had to take your first required minimum distribution (RMD) from your IRA.
- or 401(k) by April 1, you must take your second RMD by December 31.
💭 The Get Ready Money Podcast with Zach Whelchel: Intentional Budgeting
💡 Be intentional with your money.
🙌 On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Zach Whelchel, founder at MyBudgetCoach about changing the way we think about money and intentional budgeting.
🧐 In this episode we discussed:
🔹 Be intentional with your money (and your spending).
🔹 Why budgeting is the foundation of a sound financial plan.
🔹 Allocate your money to your values.
🔹 Why budgeting is for everyone.
🔹 Be aware of your decisions.
🎙️Watch or listen to the podcast (here).
The Get Ready Money Podcast is also available on YouTube and your favorite podcast app.
🎉 Featured:
💡 Ready to find hidden treasure?
🧐 Discovering Hidden Treasures While Sailing Through Year-End Finances with Virginia Asher and myself on the Plunder the SEASon's Booty: Yer Holiday Treasure Map To WHealth, a Pirate Whealth Sessions interview series event.
🤨 I talked about the how to find missing money (unclaimed property). We also talked about smart money tips for the holiday season.
😎 Check out the replay weekend December 13-16, 2024, registration required (here).
🤩 Tony Steuer Recommends
Every Moment Matters: Lessons in Living Boldly and Unapologetically by Tina Powell for the Sassy Septuagenarian presented by Keena Pettijohn. An inspiring story about facing cancer. Seasons of resilience. The power of connection. Exploring passions and giving back. Read it on (LinkedIn).
Mitigating Longevity Risks Via Past, Present & Future Tontines & Annuities with Moshe Milevsky and Laurence Kotlikoff on the Economics Matters Podcast. Check it out on (YouTube).
Do This Immediately If You Have Student Loans And A Wake Up Call For Black Women with Dr. Sonia Lewis and Naseema McElroy on the Financially Intentional Podcast. Make sense of the ever-changing student loan landscape. We dive into everything from loan forgiveness programs to practical steps you can take today to reclaim your financial future. Sonia’s no-nonsense approach and her deep understanding of how student debt impacts Black women are both empowering and inspiring. Check it out on (YouTube).
Tips for College Financial Planning with Brad Baldridge and Misty Lynch on the Demystifying Money Podcast. Critical advice for families navigating the financial maze of college preparation. Strategic borrowing for education with an emphasis on long-term impacts. Variability in college expenses and the importance of understanding the difference between sticker price and actual cost. Early-stage versus late-stage college planning and the importance of starting early. Listen on (Apple Podcasts).
Working moms are still more likely to handle child care. It costs them $20,000 a year in lost wages, reports show by Jessica Dickler on CNBC.com. Despite making major strides in the workplace, as women approach their 40s, caretaking responsibilities continue to drag down labor force participation. Read it (here).
Charting Markets: A Look at 2024 from the Novel Investor. The story of 2024 began with worries about market concentration in the Magnificent Seven only to have the least techy sectors stand out by year’s end. Diversification still matters. If market history has taught us anything is that diversification matters most when the consensus believes it matters not. Its benefits pay off when we least expect it. Check it out (here).
Insurance companies aren't the main villain of the U.S. health system by Noah Smith on Noahpinion. It's mostly the providers overcharging you, not the middlemen. A whole lot of people — maybe even most people — seem to regard health insurance companies as the main villains in the system, when in fact they’re only a very minor source of the problems. Read the article (here).
The downfall of Synapse: Is your money really safe with a fintech bank? By Ivana Pino for Yahoo! Finance. With the rising popularity of fintechs, should you be concerned? Here’s a closer look at what led to the downfall of Synapse and what you can do to ensure your deposits are protected. Read it (here).
Thank you for being part of the Get Ready Money Club. Please hit reply to share your thoughts.
Let’s Change The Way We Think About Money!
Tony
Thanks for subscribing! If you like this newsletter, please forward it to a friend.If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can subscribe (here)
Get a copy of my 📚 including The Get Ready Blueprint (learn more here).
Connect with me on (LinkedIn).
