It's the holiday shopping season. Already. Again. Where does the time go? (Minute by minute, I'm told.)
Two thousand eleven will be upon us in only a month. Here are a few tasks that are worth doing to tie a financial bow on 2010:
- Review your health and dental care choices if you have them available. At many employers it's open season — that time of year where changes can be made to your benefits that can't be made at other times of the year under normal circumstances. Check with the doctors and dentists that you go to frequently for your care to see if they'll still be taking the same insurance, if they'll still be in its preferred provider network, etc.
- Review use-or-lose accounts. Pretax flexible spending accounts (FSAs) are use or lose from year to year. Some employers allow a grace period after the end of the calendar year for using up the previous year's allotments, but not all. Review your plan and how much you have left in your FSA to see if you have some spending to do. Even if you have a grace period, check to see that some of the expenses that are allowed in 2010 aren't disallowed in 2011.
- Review your withholding. Have you been withholding enough from your paychecks to cover the federal and state income taxes you'll owe? There are still a few paychecks left in 2010 to close the gap on what you might need to pay the tax man for all of your hard work. Underwithholding may result in penalties. The IRS has a withholding calculator that can help.
- Prepare for filing 2010 taxes. If you're due a refund for your 2010 taxes, the faster you get your completed return in, the faster your money comes back to you. Make a list of who needs to send you what tax documents, and by when. As a guide you can review what documents were sent to you for your 2009 taxes. That way you'll know who's holding up your refund and can get on the horn with them.
- Review possible deductions that you can itemize, and do them before year's end if appropriate. If you'll be itemizing your deductions for your 2010 taxes, consider whether it would make sense to take the deductions now, or wait until 2011 to take them. There are times for which each is appropriate.
- Give some thought to 2011 financial goals. Consider starting work on them now rather than on January 1st. Michael Masterson's The Pledge compiles some of his secrets to success and is imminently actionable.
What other year-end financial tasks do you do?
