FROM THE BLOG

Your Mid-Year Financial Check-In

Keeping an eye on your financial health and investment performance is essential for staying on track for meeting your financial goals. To stay up to date, it’s important to schedule regular meetings with your financial advisor – and a mid-year meeting may be just the right place to start.

As summer comes to a close, it’s an ideal time for a financial tuneup. In addition to any personal questions and concerns you may have concerning your portfolio, here are some areas to check on when you meet with your financial advisor.

Review Your Investments

The only thing that’s certain about your investment portfolio is that it will always be changing. Over time and as markets fluctuate, certain investments may perform better than others. To stay on course with your financial benchmarks, you need to keep track of how your investments are performing.

Your financial advisor can help you monitor portfolio performance and provide direction when you have questions or concerns. If you decide it’s time to take a different approach to your investment mix, your advisor can help you explore different options that might make sense for your situation.

Take a Look at Your Tax Obligations

It’s a good idea to take a mid-year review of your tax obligations and formulate a tax strategy before you file next tax season. A financial professional can provide the guidance you need to review your situation and try to avoid any surprises once the new year rolls around.

As you work through your tax strategy, you will want to review your lifestyle and income to see whether there are any factors that could impact your potential tax return. Factors like a career change, a new home, or retirement could make a big difference when it comes time to file.

Mid-year is also an ideal time to tweak your strategy in order to offset your tax liability. You can defer funds to charitable giving and retirement investing or look into other strategies in seeking to maximize your potential return.

Make Adjustments as Necessary

Likely, after reviewing your income, investments, tax liability, and other factors, you’ll probably have some questions. Perhaps you’ll feel the need to make an adjustment here or reconsider an investment there.

Your financial advisor is the ideal partner for working through these mid-year changes. Not only can your advisor help you to work through paperwork and get into the details of your specific portfolio, but they can also provide professional guidance to interpret how your financial activity aligns with your financial goals and benchmarks.

By taking advantage of periodic check-ins – such as the mid-year meeting -, you can keep a finger on the pulse of your financial performance and hopefully avoid major surprises. Even when unexpected events occur, your advisor can help you navigate the outcome by bringing a more neutral perspective to balance any emotionality you might be tempted to act upon.

Are you ready for your mid-year financial check-in? Contact Puckett & Sturgill Financial Group today to schedule a consultation.