A Financial Fall Cleaning Checklist: Organizing Your Accounts Before the Holidays

As the leaves change and the year begins winding down, fall is the perfect season to tidy up more than just your home. Before the rush of the holidays sets in, take some time for a financial “fall cleaning.” Organizing your accounts now can give you peace of mind, prevent year-end stress, and set you up for a stronger start in the new year.

1. Review Your Retirement Contributions
Check how much you’ve contributed to your 401(k), IRA, or other retirement accounts so far this year. If you’re not on pace to meet your savings goals, or if you have extra funds to contribute, there’s still time to make adjustments before year-end contribution deadlines.

2. Revisit Your Budget
Expenses often rise around the holidays. Take a fresh look at your spending plan to prepare for seasonal costs like travel, gifts, or gatherings. Adjusting now can prevent dipping into savings later.

3. Check Beneficiaries
Life changes, like marriage, divorce, births, or deaths, can affect who you want listed as beneficiaries on retirement accounts, insurance policies, or investment accounts. Fall is a good time to confirm these designations reflect your current wishes.

4. Consolidate Old Accounts
If you’ve changed jobs, you may still have retirement accounts scattered across past employers. Consolidating them into one account can simplify management and give you a clearer picture of your retirement savings.

5. Review Investments and Tax Strategies
Consider whether your portfolio needs rebalancing before the year ends. You may also want to explore tax-loss harvesting or charitable contributions to reduce taxable income.

6. Secure Important Documents
Ensure your estate planning documents (wills, trusts, powers of attorney) are up to date and stored safely. Fall is also a good time to update passwords and strengthen online account security.

The Bottom Line
Just as you prepare your home for the change in seasons, preparing your finances now can make the holiday season less stressful and more enjoyable. A little effort today can protect your financial health tomorrow.

Ready to check off your financial fall cleaning list? Contact our office to schedule a year-end review and ensure your finances are organized and optimized before the holidays arrive.

About the Author: Mark Roberts

In addition to managing clients’ money and giving investment and diversification advice, Mark offers something that “the other guys” don’t - a unique approach to Retirement Tax Strategies and distribution. Time and time again, Mark meets with new clients who tell him they have a great relationship with their financial advisor but have never been offered information on this kind of approach to securing their financial futures. Mark has taken this feedback to heart and works tirelessly to ensure that his strategies focus on taxes and distribution. Mark started selling insurance for a major insurance company right out of high school to help put himself through college. After graduating with a degree in finance, he dove into estate planning on the financial side to set himself apart from other financial advisors. However, as changes were made to estate tax laws over time, Mark shifted his focus to income tax strategies. Mark’s philosophy is “the blue prints are more important than the wall paper or carpet.” The wall paper and carpet represent products like investments and insurance policies, whereas the blue prints represent the strategies. Once strategies that truly fit the client’s needs are put in place, our focus can shift to providing you with the right products. According to Mark, “It doesn’t matter what carpet we use if the walls are not in the right place.” Our approach to money management is designed to generate the largest alpha (quality) with the lowest standard deviation and beta (risk). By doing this, we help provide clients with the highest return on the lowest risk. Generating income for our retirees is also very important. Because withdrawing money from your portfolio hurts the account rather than helping it, our goal is to design income strategies to harm the portfolio the least making the money last longer.

A Financial Fall Cleaning Checklist: Organizing Your Accounts Before the Holidays

A Financial Fall Cleaning Checklist: Organizing Your Accounts Before the Holidays

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About the Author: Mark Roberts