What are your EOY personal finance rituals?

Submitted by Temujin_123 t3_zzcf8z in personalfinance

Curious what things people do at the EOY related to personal finances.

Here's what my rituals look like:

  • Early in the last quarter I take a look at all of my investment contributions: 401k, ROTH, HSA to make sure I'm on track to hit my targets and adjust contributions if necessary. I also look at how things are performing - this year is brutal but, hey, we're buying things while they are on sale.
  • I then create a spreadsheet of expected EOY bonus and create a plan for what I will do with the money (e.g., I-Bonds, additional contributions to 401k/ROTH/HSA, 6mo emergency fund, purchases, charities, etc).
  • As I get into November/early-December I meet with my financial advisor and share updates on accounts as well as plans for how to invest EOY money.
  • Mid-late December I go into Mint, audit/correct spending categorization, then export data and build a sankey diagram showing income & expenses by categories/subcategories. I go audit things maybe several times during the year, but don't build a sankey diagram until EOY.
  • Based on the monthly spending from Mint, I take the inner quartile of average spending during the year and use that as my basis for my monthly spending for my 6mo emergency fund. With 4 kids (3 teens) this has risen so basing this on data vs a hunch is helpful. I then figure out where to put the EF (which can be sizable for family of 6). For the coming year, my balance is 56% I-Bonds (purchasing some more but already having some liquid past their 1-year mark), 13% T-bills (laddered), 17% Money Market, and 14% cash.
  • I analyze the sankey diagram to make sure the percentages I'm spending on categories are in-line with my budgets and averages recommended by experts. This gives me a feel for whether I am staying within budgets and provides a check for me to adjust habits if something is amiss. This one is big for me. I highly value not worrying about money day in and day out and so this provides a way for me to keep myself honest but also not have to stress out over money. I realize this is a privilege afforded by the income level I have, but I also appreciate it in part because I spent so many years living paycheck to paycheck so liberation from that is very valuable to me. The risk here is by only doing this annually I may go months before correcting a habit. But my wife and I have pretty well-established habits that have kept in-line with our goals, so I don't worry about it much.
  • I then look at things I may have put off and take the time to fix things, book appointments for repairs/maintenance, order needed items (do a bit of inventory on emergency preps), etc. and take care of some of this. This is something I'm spending a bit more on this year as global supply chains seem to be increasingly shaky so I'm purchasing things now while parts and products are still widely available. For example, I spent money on a home power backup (went with battery I can also charge from my EVs) and interlock kit to weather power outages.
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No_Possibility_8393 t1_j2armqs wrote

I update the net worth spreadsheet and hope it went up.

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PMSfishy t1_j2c1v70 wrote

I’ve got bad news for you.

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No_Possibility_8393 t1_j2c2r3i wrote

Ha, well large enough contributions to the investment accounts + paying down mortgage + a slight beefing up of the cash reserves for reasons = a small bump in net worth, but yeah, not like the last few years.

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joe183288 t1_j2dsie9 wrote

Same..my net worth went up 30-40% each of these last few years and this year I ended up increasing it 5%. I guess the way the year has gone I should consider it a huge win.

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killmetruck t1_j2ax75z wrote

On Sunday, I will update the data for December, duplicate the 2022 tab on my spreadsheet, rename it as 2023, delete the information and call it a day.

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Hristocolindo t1_j2dq74i wrote

Same! But I also look at what I spent in each category over the last year and adjust the new budget accordingly.

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wilsonhammer t1_j2asoj1 wrote

Do my monthly update to the net worth spreadsheet and prep to backdoor the IRA limit.

I'm curious what your financial advisor does for you.

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Temujin_123 OP t1_j2au6y0 wrote

We go over all of my accounts, set up backdoor ROTH, look at the balances of my investments and re-adjust if needed.

This year we spent a bit more time running the numbers on 529s as kids are approaching college and decided to put some into bonds vs funds for the older kids since the risk of loss is too high given the short time before they start up college.

He then runs various scenarios on retirement given our yearly planned contributions, retirement goals/budgets, and different market scenarios. We're in the high-confidence threshold for retiring at 65 and moderate confidence for retiring at 60.

Honestly, I can do much of this myself (my estimated net worth at retirement was pretty close to the tools he uses). But I value the independent check and more sophisticated analysis (e.g., I don't run different market scenarios).

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wilsonhammer t1_j2awdiz wrote

sounds reasonable. hope they're not taking a percentage of your investments though!

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Temujin_123 OP t1_j2aww2g wrote

Sadly, they are. I know that's not optimal and will eat into things long-term. But it's not high enough that I'm worried about it - my rights of accumulation makes the percentage low. This is only for ROTH/529s.

If I had to go back I'd do fee-only. But it's not enough of an impact for me to bother switching.

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wilsonhammer t1_j2axtj3 wrote

It's never too late. but if the amount truly is low, then yeah, might not be worth the hassle of switching. Might be worth it to calculate the exact dollar amount of what you're paying them and re-evaluate. If it's surprisingly low (or high), at least you'll know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

happy new year!

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invenio78 t1_j2dtn8w wrote

> But it's not enough of an impact for me to bother switching.

Maybe you should have them run the numbers on how much those AUM fees are going to run you overall your lifetime. :)

In all honesty, it sounds like like you are pretty skillful with finances. I would not be paying more than a few hundred dollars for the "fun of running a few scenarios." Doing the yearly backdoor roth takes about 15 minutes of your time.

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BohoPhoenix t1_j2b5cdv wrote

  1. Update the monthly net worth and expense tracking spreadsheet
  2. Build a Sankey and evaluate spend for budget adjustments
  3. Reset passwords for all financial sites, plus a few other misc. sites
  4. Export statement history for the year for tax advantaged accounts
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imhere-because t1_j2dqe65 wrote

Make sure Multi Factor Authentication is enabled on all accounts

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DeluxeXL t1_j2at0lh wrote

I have to download HSA investment data tomorrow because my state doesn't exempt HSA.

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biondablonde t1_j2ax4d2 wrote

Complete my charitable giving for the year and get ready for backdoor Roth. Otherwise, nothing different than I do at the end of any other month.

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Temujin_123 OP t1_j2axadu wrote

I've thought about moving this to a monthly habit (or at least some of this). But I'd need to scale this back quite a bit otherwise it's be too cumbersome and I'd put off doing it.

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biondablonde t1_j2aywx9 wrote

Yes, I need to make at least some of our donations monthly - especially things like the food pantry where the need is consistent and urgent throughout the year. Thanks for the reminder!

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Preds-poor_and_proud t1_j2bypni wrote

As someone who manages a non-profit, we do budget planning. You don’t need to give monthly. Giving comes in patterns, and it is simple enough to plan for it. Give in the way that is most convenient for you.

Thanks for giving at any intervals, though, it’s really important.

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shopandfly00 t1_j2b8bwc wrote

Yikes, you're way more intense than I am!

  1. Make charitable donations (NYE tradition)
  2. Review investments, rebalance accounts as needed
  3. Review Social Security statement and pension balance online
  4. Determine various savings goals and set up automatic transfers/deposits
  5. Look at new tax laws and figure out what changes, if any, I need to make to address them

Edited to add: 6. Begin the year with a money diet, spending minimally from January to March.

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disisfugginawesome t1_j2ayhg7 wrote

Tax loss harvesting and calculating my projected income tax liabilities

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catamaranpilot t1_j2b10ri wrote

I do three main things but they all contain a lot of pieces to the overall financial puzzle.

  1. Review and adjust investment objectives and goals as needed. This includes both short and long term goals as well as updating a net worth calculation.

  2. Rebalance investment accounts if needed. This isn't technically the best way to do it but once a year rebalance works for me and allows me to tune out the up and down noise during the year.

  3. Review and adjust my monthly budget as needed. I have found this helps with keeping life style creep in check.

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Longjumping-Nature70 t1_j2bxqz2 wrote

I do my monthly financial statements and from that my net worth statement.

These provides my an opportunity to log into all the accounts and verify i am alive.

Some of those I do during the year multiple times, my mutual funds I only do maybe once or twice a year and mostly December and January.

In January I get the privilege of prepping to do my taxes and then start on them in earnest in February. Some companies just refuse to provide tax documents in a timely manner. I had two companies that always sent me letters in April that I needed to file an extension because they did not have their act together. After four years of that, I jettisoned them.

During the year I keep track of how much in dividends we get each month to get a handle on when they come in for that retirement thing.

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whisky_in_your_water t1_j2c8d3g wrote

I don't really do much since I keep things updated throughout the year. My regular monthly or bimonthly "maintenance" is:

  • update share totals in my spreadsheet for all investments - I have it fetch quotes, so it stays pretty accurate even if I forget to update share totals
  • double check to make sure bills are being paid on time
  • check FICO score and report (I use Experian app)
  • review and categorize transactions in my PF app
  • transfer HSA funds into my Fidelity HSA (I do this about 4x/year)

But there are a few things I do approximately yearly:

  • checking all of my credit cards to make sure I have spent something on them - I don't want them getting closed from inactivity, and I have a bunch
  • review yearly average spending across categories (I do this once or twice in the middle of the year too), and set goals for next year
  • look at auto and home insurance premiums to decide if I should shop around - I'll be looking for both before April
  • change password on important accounts
  • gather estimates from my wife for taxes so I have a feel for what that should look like (I model taxes in my spreadsheet)
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