The holiday season is upon us, and amidst the excitement of festivities, it’s hard to believe that another year has almost nearly passed us by.

The holiday season is often a time when people reflect and look at what more can be done in the coming year to achieve their lifestyle goals. Finances are often part of this reflection.

If getting your finances in order so that they are in tip top shape before 2024 is a priority, read on for some tips to consider.

Evaluate your financial landscape

Review your 2023 budget

Take a moment to assess how well you stuck to your budget this year. Analyse expenses, savings, and investments. What worked well? What areas need improvement? Use this insight to craft a realistic budget for 2024.

At this point, it is also worth looking at what surplus cash flow you expect after expenses month to month. Do you have a strategy for investing this wisely, so that it is best utilised? Without a clear strategy (and ideally an automated strategy), excess cash flow often disappears, leaving you short of your goals. Month to month, this isn’t a huge issue, but over the course of the year, this can really add up.

Assess your debts

Look at your debt picture. Are you comfortable with your current debt levels? Has your debt been structured well, and are your borrowing costs well managed? If these haven’t been looked at in some time, a simple review would likely be warranted and now more than ever given much higher interest rates.

It is also important to ask yourself whether your debt will be able to be paid off prior to retirement. It is much easier to make corrections with the advantage of a long-time horizon, so even if you’ve got a long working future ahead, make sure you assess your debt position over time.

Asset health

Alongside debt, it is also important to assess your asset position. Do you have the right balance between personal use assets, such as homes, cars, boats etc, and investment assets, such as investment properties, shares and superannuation?

More importantly, do you think you are on track to have sufficient investment assets to live off? If the answer is no, then the sooner you put a plan in place to rectify this, the easier your future is likely to be.

Plan for the future

Set financial goals

Establish clear, achievable financial goals, not just for the coming year, but longer term. Critically – these financial goals need to be about support your lifestyle priorities – what matters to you, and how do you want to live? Whether it’s saving for a well-deserved family holiday, investing in education, or building an emergency fund, outline your objectives and devise a strategy to achieve them. Make sure these are written down, and have a conversation with your partner to ensure you are on the same page.

Of course, once your goals are firmly established, the next step is ensuring you have a financial plan – a clear strategy – in place to meet these goals. This is a good point in time to talk to a Financial Adviser, if you haven’t already.

Protect what you create

Growing your wealth is important, but so too is protecting it. As you run a health check on your financial position, check whether you have appropriate death, income protection and disability insurances in place. If you do have these, then check when they were last reviewed – if not for some time, then a review is warranted. Importantly, if you’ve had a change in your circumstances (eg career, family, debt, income) since you last reviewed your insurances, then this should be a priority.

Ultimately, you need to make sure you are comfortable that you’ve found the right balance between insurance costs and coverage, and that you are receiving insurance advice from someone with your best interests at heart.

Have you considered retirement?

Even if retirement is a long way off, it is important to review whether your financial affairs are set up in a way that will provide you with freedom in retirement. The first step is developing a retirement plans, and putting goals in place about what your retirement might look like.

It is important to consider here that for many people, retirement isn’t just about stopping work. It is about having freedom and flexibility to live life on their own terms.

Optimise your investments

Investment check-up

Evaluate your investment portfolio by asking yourself these questions: Outside of property, do you have any investments? Do you have an investment strategy? Are your investments aligned with your long-term financial goals? Are you happy with how your investments are performing? Are your investments sufficiently diversified to protect yourself?

These questions are all important considerations as you review your investment position.

Superannuation

Superannuation is an often overlooked but excelled structure to invest in, with low tax rates and the potential to significantly impact your wealth. As you look to review your finances, ask yourself whether you are contributing enough to superannuation? Are you taking advantage of additional contribution opportunities? Review how your superannuation is invested and make sure you’re comfortable with how it’s performing.

Fine-tuning your finances

Tax efficiency

Optimising your tax position is not something that should be thought about only at end of financial year tax time. Instead, establishing plans and structures in the most tax-effective way is important if you want to ensure you pay only what you absolutely have to from a tax perspective.

Ask yourself: Do you have plans in place to minimise your taxes? Are your financial affairs set up in a tax-effective manner? Do you think that you could do more to reduce tax?

You want to be answering “yes, yes, no” to the above if you want your finances in tip top shape.

Get ready for 2024

As we count down to the holiday season, and look forward to taking some time to reflect and plan for the year ahead, proactively reviewing your financial wellbeing is really important. Financial planning is an ongoing process, and only through regularly revisiting your goals, strategies and position can you best grow and protect your hard-earned wealth.

If you want to get your finances in tip top shape for 2024 and beyond, then our Advisers would be more than happy to help you. Please contact our office today to organise a cost and obligation free discussion to see whether we may be able to help you.

Here’s to a happy, healthy 2024!

Any information in this article is general in nature and does not consider any of your personal objectives, financial situation and needs. It is as intended, to be of a general nature only and NOT a recommendation to you. You should consider whether the information is appropriate to your needs, and where appropriate, seek personal advice from a registered financial adviser.