For many folks who do crafts work, there comes a time when you have completed a long, drawn out project, and you take the opportunity to do a reset of your space. It is an opportunity to clean, repair & sharpen your tools, clean up the area, take stock of your materials and area, and determine next steps to improve them before you start your next project.
For me, I am an amateur woodworker. With Christmas done, I can get back to the arts & crafts sideboard that I have been working on (still need to complete the drawers and the doors). You can kind of see it in the back there. Before that, however, I clean the shop, cull my woodpile, sharpen up the chisels and planes, and get everything ready for the next batch of work.
I often think this is similar to the end of year financial work that people have to complete. Some of the key items that folks work on right before/right after the New Year.
- Tax planning for year-end, and for the new year (especially in tax-advantaged accounts)
- Capital gains/loss harvesting (done before end of year)
- Rebalancing of the portfolio (I always do this twice a year, Jan & July)
- Review investment performance and determine what changes need to be made
- Review investment performance and make adjustments to next year’s projections based on updated knowledge
With this done, folks can start work in the new year, with their plans in place – able to “hit the ground running.”
For me, I have some minor tweaks to my investment allocation. For tax planning, I prepaid my property taxes, so that I could deduct them for 2017 taxes – but now it appears that this won’t be allowed (still up in the air). Ah well, at least I tried to do something, instead of just sitting there. Finally, I want to look back over the stocks in my value investing “fun” account to see what their performance is, and what the price should be.
Like a lot of FIRE folks, I will have an update in the next week or so on 2017 and goals for 2017, and I look forward to reading other FIRE bloggers results and objectives for the New Year.
Happy new year to everyone in the community!
Mr.39 Months