I hope these “thought starters” will help close 2023 and make the most of 2024:
- Acknowledge What Went Wrong and Move Towards your future: What’s done is done and we can’t go back and change it, so recognize the errors and the changes that need to be made. This is our challenge and our opportunity for 2024.
- Be kind to yourself: Celebrate your Progress! Acknowledge how far you’ve come and “keep your eyes on the prize” despite any 2023 setbacks (job loss, death, overspending, disability, divorce, market declines, missed goals, procrastination etc.).
- Measure What Matters: As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Understand what matters to you and measure your progress towards achieving your goals.
- Focus on What You Control: We can’t control other people, politics, the stock market, or social media but we can control what we think and what we do each day. Ever check an email or text only to look up 20 minutes later and find yourself scrolling on your phone, not knowing how you got there?!
It is up to us to put in place ways to control our behavior and to hold ourselves accountable to our goals and values. This is particularly important when headlines fill you with fear. Don’t waste your valuable time on what you can’t influence or control. - Protect Your Wealth: Implement ways to protect your assets, life, health, income, personal information, family, and confidential data so that when a crisis occurs you can meet expenses and make the most of new challenges. We protect our wealth using insurance, updated legal documents, sufficient emergency savings, updated organized finances, and updated resources (lines of credit and portfolio). We work together to keep moving you towards your financial goals through life’s challenges.
- Tax Allocation: Planning your taxes is essential to helping you to keep more of what you’ve earned. To make the most of opportunities we must work together to understand your base tax profile and adjust it through the year so that we can execute on available tax strategies by year-end. During high-earning years we often prioritize tax savings while keeping our eyes on the big picture that may indicate recognizing higher taxes to gain a future advantage.
Edi Alvarez, CFP®
BS, BEd, MS