Four simple check-ins to help you finish the year confident and prepared
As 2025 winds down and the holidays start blending together like one long charcuterie board, this is the perfect time to hit pause and take a quick look at your retirement strategy. Nothing stressful—just a little end-of-year cleanup to make sure your plan still reflects your goals, your life, and the reality of today’s markets and tax rules.
To keep it simple, here’s a four-week structure you can follow between now and New Year’s.
Week 1: Retirement Plan Check-In — Are You Still On Track?
Before December gets crazy, take a moment to run through the basics. Small updates now can create big long-term impact.
Start with these:
- Contributions: Are you close to maxing out your 401(k), IRA, or Roth? If you’ve got room—and especially if you qualify for catch-ups—now’s the time.
- Investment Mix: Markets have moved this year. Make sure your risk level and allocations still match your goals, not your emotions. A quick rebalance can help keep things aligned.
- Roth Conversions: If your tax bracket makes sense for it, converting traditional IRA dollars to Roth before year-end can be a powerful long-term move.
- RMDs: If you’re 73 or older, take care of these now so you don’t spend the holidays dealing with penalties.
Advisor Tip: While you’re in there, update beneficiaries. Life changes; outdated paperwork should, too.
Week 2: Strategic Tax Planning — Keep More of What You Earn
Taxes don’t take a holiday break, but smart planning can help ensure you’re not leaving money on the table.
A few high-impact moves:
- Roth Conversions: Still one of the most flexible ways to reduce future tax liability.
- Tax-Efficient Withdrawals: The order of withdrawals matters, especially if you want to keep your bracket in check.
- Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs): If you’re already taking RMDs, giving through your IRA can lower taxable income and support a cause you care about.
- Social Security Tax Strategy: Structuring income the right way can reduce how much of your benefit gets taxed.
- Tax-Efficient Investing: Municipal bonds, tax-managed funds, ETFs and individual stocks rather than mutual funds, especially in non-qualified accounts, can all help reduce the bite.
Want to know what your long-term tax picture looks like—with and without these strategies? That’s what I’m here for.
Week 3: Insurance Review — Are You Covered Where It Matters?
Insurance isn’t exciting, but it’s one of the most important parts of a solid financial plan. Life changes quickly—your coverage should keep up.
Run through this quick checklist:
- Life Insurance: Any changes in income, family, or goals? Adjust coverage and beneficiaries so everything lines up.
- Long-Term Care: Review any existing policy to make sure it still meets your expectations. If you don’t have coverage, this could be a good time to explore it while options are still affordable.
- Health Insurance & Medicare: Look at premiums, deductibles, drug plans, and any supplemental coverage. Medicare changes annually—don’t assume last year’s plan is still the best fit.
- Home & Auto: Ensure replacement costs reflect today’s prices, not what your home would’ve cost to rebuild in 2017.
Good insurance is quiet and boring. Bad insurance becomes the only thing you think about. Let’s make sure yours stays in the first category.
Advisor Tip: A great advisor will help you review your companies benefits package while you’re in open enrollment, all you need to do is ask.
Week 4: Round Out Your Retirement Plan — Build the Complete Picture
A real retirement plan goes beyond savings. It should support the life you want to live—now, five years from now, and twenty years from now.
Make sure you’ve covered:
- Your Vision: What does retirement feel like for you? Travel? Grandkids? Volunteer work? A workshop full of tools you swear you’ll organize someday?
- Reliable Income: Understand how Social Security, pensions, retirement accounts, and any annuities work together to create dependable cash flow.
- Investment Strategy: Your portfolio should evolve as you do—balancing growth and preservation with your individual risk tolerance in mind.
- Tax Efficiency: Look beyond this year. Think in decades.
- Inflation & Healthcare Costs: They’re not fun topics, but they matter—deeply.
- Insurance Coverage: Align everything with your current stage of life and expected future needs.
- Estate & Legacy Planning: Make sure wills, trusts, and beneficiaries reflect your real wishes—not the version of you from three addresses ago.
Ready for a Year-End Review?
Whether you’re just getting started or you’ve been at this for years, this is the perfect time to review, refine, and set yourself up for a confident 2026.
Give me a call at (805) 570-3765, and we’ll walk through it together—clear, simple, and tailored to you.
