9 Things to Do Before 2024 Ends
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Nine things to do before we close out twenty, twenty four.

run. I am so excited about this because we know just how powerful a little bit of planning can do, and there are some significant decisions that you can make right here at the end of the year. They can have large impacts, not just this year, but well into your financial future.

But I think there's actually before we get in all these tips, tricks and things that they do, everyone should subscribe to the money.

So that's one thing you should do right now before another moment passes because we love knowing that you are out there so that we can continue creating content just for you are brand. You will talk about some things that should happen before the year. And as a tax guy, I got to believe that this is like neer and deer. And true .

to your heart, evolved because we used to do this year in show. And we would let me go here and give you the Cliff notes version. If we say differing income, if you can, accelerator deduction, because all of IT was the purpose of minimizing the tax to be paid.

But IT was a lot of this stuff needs to be manent stuff because we go through that, we close out years, we hit new year's resolutions. People need something bigger. That actually brings you into focus what's going on with your financial life. And once again, we land on the foundation of all good financial decision making with .

the financial through talk about how IT falls into the fall. So even as we dive into the very first one, we think about the things you want to do before you and the very first thing we think you should do before you begin thinking about building wealth and growing and moving towards the future, if you want to make sure that you have your risk cover. So have you yet this year accounted your cat.

And such an important thing for the financial of Operations is not just one step at two steps. And if you read millionaire sion, you really want to see the origin store. You'll see why this is such an important thing is because cash is actually that margin, that buffer, is to keep you safe, insane, through the chaos that the worlds go throw at you.

So as you think about this, have you done step one, do you have your highest adaptable covered? Do you know what your deduct are? What's my health co.

S my home? Do I have the highest amount in cash? And if i've done that, then i've gone to step two, and i've gone to step three.

Is my emergency fund fully fun to do? I know what I would cost me to run my household for three to six months, covering my living expenses. And do I have that in liquid cash readily available.

should not need to get the cash, also want to if you have any upcoming big things. And often when people tell me they have a goal that is three months, six months, nine months in the future, I like that needs to be liquid. So if you got an engagement ring, if you got the family vacation, that's not investment money. That's money that needs to be liquid in cash.

And the last question and answers, if you're gona hold cash, you might as well have IT working for you. Where is is sitting? Do you just have your cash sitting in a checking account, earning next to nothing? Or do you have IT working for you? Because realistically, Brown, if you let your cats work for you, you can have a huge .

impact you don't sleep on. This is i'm always amazed at how many very smart people they just take their cash for granted. You can make over four percent, close to five percent still on your cash if you take an active role and choosing to let your money work.

If you think about, if you just to sit there, your earning interest and a standard checking account only earning something like half a percent, you might make a hundred box, one hundred and forty box a year if instead you had an emerge fun let's IT was thirty thousand dollars sitting in that account you're talking about about making over foreign half percent.

That could be thirteen hundred dollars that you talk about, like vacation money just for your cash sitting there. Don't sleep on IT. Make sure that your cash is working for you.

Now let's talk about if we're going to take a manage of cash working for you to talk about actually getting that free money. If you talk about step to the financial of Operations, everybodys always curious, why in the world we know credit card debt is over twenty plus percent for a lot of people.

How are the working you guys? Have you investing in your employer plan before you even pay off twenty plus percent credit? Or what's easy if your employer is offering you fifty percent for those fifty cents on every doll, or hundred percent for the dollar for dollar contributions, you got ta get in there and get that free money from your employer.

Don't get of is how often Brown we go do four in k presentations and the employer might say, if you put in five percent, we'll put in four percent. And we ask the product, oh, how much you do near four K I will do a three percent, three per your leaving money on the table. IT is literally free money. So have you reviewed how your four watch do you know what the maximum contribution you can put in to maxim that matches is? And are you doing that if you're not, you consider changes right now.

but it's not just our client we're talking to. We one case then god recently found out thirty four percent of people are not maxing out there. For one case means getting the match.

So get in there, get that free money. And if you don't have a matching contribution, maybe your plan, your employers not caught up to the times do that, it's okay. Skipped to step three, you can pay off that I interested now .

don't get free money. We're talking a lot about like in retirement plans and four one k contributions. Free money is not just that you may participate in or you may work for a company that has an employees that project plan where you potentially can buy your employer stock at a this kind of Price.

Well, if you can buy something that's worth a hundred dollars and you will have to pay eighty five dollars for IT, that fifteen dollars savings is free money. So if you have access to an employee stock purchase plan through your employer, you may want to consider that too. And you may want to prioritize that because that's likely a step two item inside the financial order of Operation.

Now remember, we do want to keep you safe on this. Don't let all of your employment income, your net worth income, I mean, your net worth and everything reside only with your import. This is one of things. If you lean into this, make sure you are diversifying a creative process. But take a man of every money.

And then as you are even just doing the minimum contribution to get that full match, have you done the research? Have you done the analysis to determine should I do pretax contributions or should I do roth contributions? If you're looking for how the sight is pretty simple, you just want to look at your marginal tax rates, both of the federal side.

In the state side, if you add them up and they're under twenty five percent, then you know me when to consider doing the rough contributions inside your time account. If it's between twenty five and thirty percent, IT gets a little more nuances to based on your unique account structure, time, her rise in age specific items. But if you're over thirty percent, when you add up your marginal federal, marginal state, that tax savings is so valuable this year that you may want to consider doing free tax because every dollar that you put in can save you thirty cents and tax to huge tax savings. You want to make sure you're optimizing and maximizing when you make your .

contact and you're hoping you have an orbital situation when you retire. Because we know retirees, we have lesser and income. Lot times you pay a lot lower tax, yes.

So that's why you're taking a range of that tax planning opportunity. But if you are hearing a socks, others you go, I don't even know what my marginal tax rate is. I would encourage you got a money out outcome, slash resources and youtube and download r tax.

Got we're talking about some things that you want to do before we get to the end of twenty four. This next one is an important when is again, we're talking about the foundation. We're talking about taking care of the necessary things to take care of.

Have you gotten your liabilities under controller? Or do you even know what your liabilities are? We love this time of year because this is the time that we get to do. Network statement is like our Christmas morning because IT is so exciting to line up everything that you own. And the line up everything that you own and see where you stand this year will specifically when IT comes to what you oh and you're doing your network and you might uncover, you have some bad actors on there that you should potentially be knocking.

You look worth so into this, where I could give a away a free resource to everybody. So if you got a money out outcome flash resources, you can download a free simple that will help you do your network if you need to get on this angle tradition.

And by the way, if you're wondering what items should I track on this network k's day and how about the changes? Because maybe I mean, year two, i'm in year three and I want to have a dashboard view and my paying down my dead, is my net worth growing? How does I compared to my income? We'll d encourage you to take IT a step further, maybe geta learn that money at a come. And we actually have a network too that will help you take you to the next level and actually be a look at the data and have that dashboard of view.

The second question, as you look at all of those different liabilities as you think and through this, you to the question, how much bad debt can you get rid of by year? And mean, you've had to say this all the time. If you have credit card dead, that is an absolute nonstarter.

You have to knock that out. But there are other types of death that you want to figure out. How do I tize? What do I think about car loans? What do I think about suit loans? How should I attack those? Do those even belong in step three, the financial of Operation?

Yeah I mean, cards. We actually put together some specific rules for everyone of these things. And I think it's interesting like car loans, we did have a spread on this because we understand, yes, cars are going to be a necessarily for a lot of people to get to their J O, B to start that wealth building process. But we're like, let's give some god, lds and age does come into play. The interest rate comes in to play. And we even put out some rules at time into if you get those offers from the manufacturer where zero percent IT still doesn't change the fact that we wanted respect twenty three, eight, you're going to want to pay these cars off within three years because cars appreciate rapidly and you don't want to be driving around in your wealth.

But it's not just cars that might be showing up on your worst that you might also have student loans. And you're trying to figure out how do I watch that again, we have a rule of fun to help you navigate this. If you're in your tories, in your student loans are greater than six percent, you may want to consider prioritising paying off those student loans.

If there below six percent, we would argue that your money can work harder for you elsewhere. So you may want to consider that in your thirties, the number drops down to five percent, and the forties IT drops down to four percent. Again, it's all about commending your army of doors, bill.

So have you done a network statement? Have you lined up all of your liability? And you know which ones you should be attacking right now and which ones are OK to persist on the .

that statement in the future years? Yeah under control. We've talk about all the time. I felt americans, again, way too comfortable with that as one more reason. If you do the network statement, I think you go when you see at front center and they even compare that to the wealth multiply and seeing what every dollar has a pointed become, you look at IT a little differently and you won't fall into that trap.

I brand the next thing that we want to talk about as IT comes to year in the things we want to think about. And I think this is maybe probably your favourite year and planning on and released one of them. Have you reviewed? Have you maximized all of the tax free savings opportunities that are currently available?

Let me give you a clue. If the government is, go restrict who can put money into these type of accounts. If they are, go restrict how much you can put in these things, you probably ought to pick up and go, wow, this must be something pretty sweet.

If i'm going to potentially, yes, I don't get a tax reduction on rough contributions, but I get tax free growth. And then you think about if if you love tax free growth, H S, S, because they actually take rough accounts due to a whole new level, because their triple tax advantage with a health savings account. As long you are that high deductable health plane that is a requirement, you go get reduction on the contribution, you go bild to watch a grow tax free. And if you use IT on qualified medical expenses, you're going to be able to pull IT out completely tax free. That's an amazing opportunity.

So some of the questions, if you have access to each say that you may want to be thinking about this years, have I maxed IT out? The single contribution limit is four thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars this year. The family contribution is eighty three hundred. Not only have a max out this year, but I think about going in the next year, and I get in the open and all.

But what is the best health insurance for my family or for me in this next year old? Stay on the high adaptable plan to be able to be H S, H S A eligible? Or might there be another opportunity? Might I ought to take advantage of one of the other health insurance options at my employer? Just because you did something this year does not mean that you should default to next. You want to make sure you think through this again so you can be maximizing your dog.

Yes, this is a year in planning show, unfortunately, into the year fourth quarters when most of you have open enrollment on your health insurance. Take an active role, both senate. Don't just assume what you did last year's going to be good for this year.

I want you to think about, do the homework and figure out, is that going to be some family changes? Meaning, are you doing family planning to the fact that you think you might have children next year? Pay attention.

Are you reaching a certain age? Hey, I crossed over the big favo. I knew that there could be some medical requirements. I took an active role and say, hey, let's look at our health insurance and choices a little differently now, and i'm going to be leaning a little extra to make sure I do all that preventive stuff.

And then obviously, we want you to be if you're gonna a advantage, an h, you're going to do part of your financial order of Operation. We want to be part of that four percent and actually invest those dollars to grow for the future so that you are truly getting that tax free growth and ultimately, those tax free distribution. So hell, service accounts are one type of tax free account we want to maximize.

But there also raw I S, as we're coming up to into this year. Have you maximized? Do you are you set up to put the full seven thousand dollars in the a rah? Ra, if you're over fifty, are you doing eight thousand hours? Or are you even going to be eligible for auth this year? This might be a great time to figure out.

Oh, well, i'm getting a year in bonus. I was not anticipating or I got our issues that vested that I had not counted on, mean, I put me in a rough I was not eligible to that do I need to start on lying? That do I need to go back and reputation out those contributions so that I don't run a file of the raw I ra .

contribution threshold? Yeah, this is don't sleep on the raw and the tax free growth, tremendous opportunities for wealth building with this step brand.

So as we're thinking about that, we're maxing out step five. We're doing the raw areas. We're doing the H S. Says another thing you might want to think about once you've got to work through these is okay.

One of the single greatest tools in my tool belt to legally hide money from the government, safe the future, is my employer. Sponge determining account. Have I hit the max? What am I doing inside my four one k four three b four forty seven. And should I be doing more before we get to year?

And this is is worth sharing and reminding everyone. The first account that most people cross into seven figure status with is that employer for one k this woman is because you can put so much into IT, you also get some incentive from your empire. Guys, this is a year in planning show you might have some bonuses coming up and it's worth the extra homework to reach out to your employers, say, hey, can I put a different savings percentage on my upcoming bonus versus what i've put on my Normal compensation ing? You might build to max out those retirement contributions as that year and bonus pays out.

So some accounts l let you go back in time like a step I R A if you're small business on or your routh, your H I say you can fund for a player four or one k if you are participating, the one k don't allow that. If you're going to max out, if you're going to hit twenty three thousand 3 thousand five hundred IT has to happen before the simple thirty first because he has to be reflected on your w 2。

So if you don't get those dollars in there this year before then the year you're not going to get him in there. So make sure you're doing the math, recognize what is that, that you need to be putting in the max out. Is that something you can freeze in .

there before we close out? This is year and bonuses. You might want to do a little preemptive homework to figure out how close to you to the next tax bracket because you might be able to look at your year and bonus load up to traditional for one k to keep yourself in that lower tax back.

And or maybe you're at the point you can no longer do rough our contributions without doing back door 就 assa s to get IT in there。 This could be another planning opportunity. Don't sleep on that.

Take an active role in being a participant, maximizing retire OPPO. I'm going across over twenty five percent. That's great. That's awesome. You don't have to go to step. You don't have to continue saving more for your heating, twenty five percent if you max out and you've not hit your twenty five percent yet, then we want you to go to step seven, then we want you to go to hyper accumulation.

Just because you fill up that four or one k four, three, seven bucket does not mean that you cannot do additional savings above and beyond that in a regular Normal aftertaste count. That leaves us to the next thing that we want to make sure doing, make sure you close out this year. You finished the drill. Have you hit your twenty five?

Yes, I mean, we title this hyper cumulation. And people, what in the world, what is hyper cumulation always remind people. This means that we are taking life and our savings behavior beyond twenty five percent. And this is the part I get excited about.

This is a lot of what is driven steps, one through six of the financial of Operations is maximizing not only the cash reserves, not only maximizing the employer free money, but it's also just all attacks, favored ways that you can save money. Step seven, what I love is isolate you as the commander of your army of dollar bills. Start to think about how am I actually going to use this money is not just about the saving. It's also where are we going begin with the end and mine. I love that we get be so strong and delivered with what beyond twenty five percent means.

So let's talk about what counts in that, what counts towards the twenty five percent. Obviously talking about employer sponsor plans for one case for three bees, four forty seven S, R I S, rough or traditional R, H, S S. If if we are investing those dollars, if we are putting money in H R, A in the middle using those that is not counted part of our twenty five percent, it's only if it's going for the future.

We have pension contributions going in. Empty your match. If your income is at such a place that you're allow to include the twenty five percent, maybe you have an e soup that you participate in an employee stock purchase plan, and then exactly what you said, run your tax account, just regular, Normal after tax brokers account is a great place to be putting money for the future.

You can add up all of these different accounts that you're able to save, and that was where you want your twenty five percent to be in the question people ask, okay, guys, to get this. but. I've listened to other folks and they tell me ten percent of be.

Do you just do ten percent? We don't think ten percent to with the goal. We think that twenty five percent of be the goal. And there's a reason behind the way.

Don't just take our word for take an active role and actually figuring out we give you the tools. This is why I love what we do here. The money I show is we actually put pin the paper and create plans and show the numbers to you. We're very transparent. We eat your own cooking.

But if you go to money, god, outcome, slash resources, and you ask yourself, how much did you save? We actually have a resource show you what can twenty five percent do for you and and what IT takes into account is what's your age, meaning how much time do you have ahead of you? What's your savings rate? What can you expect that to produce an income replacement or retirement replacement ratios in the future? You'll just take somebody's word for and take the active role, actually look at the dad and see what you .

need for your financial life. OK. B, i'm five, but I have to be a higher income individual.

So i've done the raw s, and i've done the H. S. S. And i've done the max up the four.

Can I still vents having hit five percent? The next question I need to answer is, okay, we're do I need to open a broker counter? Why might that be something excited to open? Because it's not tax advantaged in tax free like a rough necessary tax deduction for money they're put in there. So what are the benefits of .

a broker account when I like is visual. There are no limits. So if you're planning catch up, you and you need to put extra money into an account.

You know with roth iras, even you're four one case, they are going to get to play, say no, you can put any more money. The good thing is well, after tax money you get to loaded up. There's nobody he's go to limit how much you can put in these accounts. That's a powerful opportunity.

big benefit as well. You don't attest deduction when you put money in and IT doesn't go tax free. There are still some tax variations.

If you save into an investment I can into a broken age account and you invest us dollars and you hold the things that you invest in long term, those problems would be served to long term capital gains rates currently lower than ordinary income tax rates. So even though it's not growing tax defer necessarily, you're not going to be tax free. IT is still tax favorite and tax advantage. So IT still might make sense to save money here because you can still do IT in a pretty tax efficient way.

And i'd like that there's no early withdraw penalty. And this go serve y multiple ways if you're one. These people is part of the fire movement, or what I like to call the fan movement. The next endeavor, not necessarily retiring early. You might need access to this money for fifty five for four win case or fifty and half for the for r well, that you you need the bridge account. You're going to love that these don't have an early withdrawal is if you're somebody who considers yourself a fancy investor, wants to get into real estate, you're going to look the aftertaste count because you can get access to these assets for future investment opportunities without panelling.

That's a powerful thing. Super part. Another little small tax ted bit as there is a unique opportunity that if you happen to be in a certain income threshold, if your agi is under forty seven thousand dollars for single individuals, there are under ninety four thousand for individuals that are married falling jointly, you might be able to recognize capital gains inside of your tax account in pay zero percent tax rate, that's right.

Zero percent long term capital gains tax rate if you follow the income threshold. So as we come to the into the year, you're gonna want to look and say, okay, where was my income for the year? Where do I fall? Might IT make sense me to think about accelerating some of those gains, paying zero percent tax, resetting my basis, reinvesting redeploying those dollars is a great benefit and tool that's available inside a tax.

More broker accounts eyebrows. So now let's talk about the x. So we talked about a lot like the blocking, tackling a lot of logistics. Now let's talk about some of the I don't want to say more fulfilling because it's all fulfilling, but some of the exciting stuff. Would you like to call the abundance go?

Yeah, these these are prepaid future expenses, the official title. But I do like to call the abundant, because this is the exciting thing. You know, often if you have your favorite dance move, this is the time to probably celebrate, because you are walking into that abundance phase of life.

Do you have a favorite move?

I mean, actually, I have put some thought into, and I could do the backwards warm, but but now that i'm old, I think i'd heard myself. So I wish I, A word, a Better move, like a other learn and running man IT.

Would surge be much Better than than doing the worm would if you subscribe right now channel? And we read right.

But but this is one of those things where I think about because a lot of people we take some flag for this is that we put in step aid or these prepaid future next. This is when you get to take care of the kids. This is because what you your kids can get student loans.

Your kids can get scholarship. They can get grants. There's no grants for retirement. There's no scholarships for retirement.

You've gotta make sure you take care of your financial life, just like on the airline, in the flatten and says, put on your mass before you help out your children. It's the same way with your personal finances. Do not miss out on this moment. And so as you're thinking .

about IT taking care of your kid, assuming that you've taken care yourself first might mean saving in a five twenty nine for future college expenses or IT might be getting them excited about building their financial future, opening custodio of fires and teaching them the power of tax free growth or maybe just to fund future expenses like wedding rings or like first homes or like first cars, and you might just want to open an up movement account so that you can begin teaching your children how to become financial meeting. Because one of the greatest gifts that you can give them, more than money, more than resources, more than inheritance, is teaching them how to build their own wealth for the future.

So, F T, take care. The kids I do like and step bit is the abundance goals, as if this is where you fancy yourself wanting to get in the real, you're not faking IT. Now, so because the thing is with real state, a lot times it's leveraged debt, meaning you are borrowing money to buy the real estate.

You need to have a good financial foundation underneath you in case things just got ugly. And that's why I love this is a great stage to consider real estate. This is also if you want to increase your lifestyle, this is the one where you're not faking until you make IT. You actually can afford to drive the nicer car, maybe have a little bit nicer house. You can make these consumption decisions because you didn't sacrifice building wealth because you add steps one through seven working in the backside.

And as you're doing that, you get to begin to have the question. You begin to answer the question, what is abundance for me? What does that look like? What are the things that I do value? What are the goals? And I am working towards what do I want my financial life to look like both now and in the future.

As you've worked through the financial order of Operation you're getting in the step, this is where you begin to focus on some of those things, this where those types of things that you can begin to take shape. And one of those things that may come up you may be interested in is the very next step. Okay, should I consider now I ve all the stuff that i've wanted to do now, should I just start d risking my life? Should I consider paying off that low interest, thinking about knocking out the mortgage, being completely debt, right?

This is definitely one of those risk analysis. And a lot of people a year and do get bonuses and other things, you have a little bit more windfall money or or margin to make this decision. Nothing is.

I just want to make sure ties into the financial order of Operations. The majority of you still have mortgages IT with interest rates that are less than what cash is paying, meaning they're less than four and a half percent if you were maximizing that cash moment. Well, that's the point where you Better make sure you check in the list off.

And here's the two things that we always share, financial water Operations. This is a step. Now I know that, that differs from some other systems out there is because I think you've gotta make sure you make the wealth before you focus on maintaining the wealth by d risking.

And a lot of people never get through the maker or get wealthy phase. They are already trying to do risk, and that breaks my heart when they are in their choice when there in their thirties. That's why the second thing we always share with people is IT needs to be age forty five plus.

And you say, wow, well, here's why every dollar for a twenty year old has a potential become A D eight dollars. Every dollar for a thirty year old has potentially become twenty three dollars. Every dollar for forty year old is seven dollars.

Every dollar for fifty old is three dollars. Do you see what happens? The degradation of compounding growth is going to be rapid.

So there's a time to make in build and then there's a time to maintain and keep safe. I just want to make sure you get that in the right order. See you don't short change your future self.

no love. And as we're thinking about nine things that you may want to do before twenty, twenty four ends before, or nine things you may want to think about, one that we always remind you of is, remember generosity. Remember if you are in a place where you done all the stuff that you've want to do, if you've been able to build the life that you you want to build, other ways that you can give back, other ways that you should begin thinking about, not only making the wealth, not only having the wealth, but ultimately be multiplying the wealth.

And specifically, as a relates to you in are there unique straws you could be employing? Should you think about using a charity giving fun to you, donate, appreciate security so that you can ize reductions this year? Are there tax favorite tax event? Ge ways. That you can even satisfy your goal of being generous.

And don't forget, let's clean out the we're here and here used to get a little time ahead of you. Go head and save you a few books and do some good go donate some clothes, donate some things that are laying around the house. And this is one of things when I was writing, million are mission.

I made shirk, because I think generosity is such a powerful thing. This is, this is a ground rule. This is a step ten of the financial Operations. This is actually something you should put is an umbrella top of the financial Operations.

Generosity should be something we all practice because here's what I like about when you're generous is in a lot of ways that let you get outside of being selfish and let you focus on the self is because a big thing that I hope all financial mutes realize is that money is a tool. It's not a goal. If you don't tie into what's you're why, what's abundance for you and have purpose with everything that you're doing in your financial life, I think you're ms out on a lot.

Make sure you ve got a money out our com to just check out all the things we have, you all free stuff because I love given out the free stuff, got a money out outcome, slash resources, but we love loading you up on your host Brown, press them. mr. Bohannon got team out.

The money guy show is hosted by brian present. About wealth management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the securities and exchange commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations abound, wealth management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through the money I show. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, investment or legal advice.