A Midyear Financial Check-In: Adjusting the Course
Somehow, we’re already halfway through the year. For some, this season means we slow down and our cares fade away into the background. For others, especially working parents, summer is a hectic time while we juggle work and childcare. In either case, one very important thing gets overlooked: our finances.
Plans we made in January have slipped lower on our to-do list. And whether we’re off enjoying some alone time on the beach or corralling the kids, summer seems an unlikely time to get around to them. Yet, mid-year June is the perfect time for a financial check-in.
Imagine our financial plan as a road trip. We don’t ignore the map after plugging the destination into the GPS. Traffic changes. Sometimes we realize we took a detour we didn’t plan. A quick check-in doesn’t mean the trip is off track. It just helps us adjust the route before we get too far off course.
Glancing at the Map
In the midst of summer chaos, we might wonder when it’s safe to take our eyes off the road to study the map. Once we’ve got the route set, we don’t have to stare at the map for hours to make sure we’re on the right path. Short glances here and there are enough.
Fitting those glances into our summer schedule is as easy as finding a few minutes once a week for reflection. Maybe Saturday morning we wake up 15 minutes before the kids. Over that first cup of coffee, we can think about one financial task we meant to address in January and take a simple step toward completing it.
Where Can We Course Correct?
What can we stop thinking about and start acting on now? Here’s 10 things we can do over the next few weeks that shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. Let’s pour that morning coffee and tackle one together.
1. Vacation planning: Our annual budget might include funds for a vacation, but we never quite planned it. Let’s take action now! Book tickets to a theme park or put down a deposit on a hotel today. That will give us a concrete timeline to plan the rest of our vacation. If finances are tight this year, let’s plan a day trip over Labor Day Weekend.
Fantastic! Our summer won’t slip away before we have a chance to enjoy it. And, if we didn’t budget for a vacation this year, now’s the time for us to put it in the budget for 2027.
2. Start tax prep: Reach out to our financial and/or tax advisor to ask what they need from us for an estimate on this year’s taxes and withholdings and ask that it be in the agenda for our next meeting. Taking even this quick action today will help us prepare for any owed taxes later.
3. Subscription creep: Let’s log into our iCloud account and remove all our unnecessary subscriptions. If in doubt, we can unsubscribe. That will force us to determine its importance later when we get renewal notices. We can also skim through our bank/credit card transactions and find other pesky subscriptions for things like magazines and streaming services that we don’t use.
Along the same line, what other little expenses have crept their way into our regular spending but don’t really mean much to us? If we won’t miss them, nip them! Or we can replace them with less expensive options.
4. Emergency fund check-in: We meant to automate monthly deposits in January but didn’t get around to it. That’s a quick and easy thing we can do now and not have to worry about again.
5. The big ‘What if?”: IF we feel unprepared, let’s shoot an email to our financial advisor and ask to put life insurance or a legal document check-up on the agenda for our next meeting. Let someone else remember these big to-do items for us.
6. Job satisfaction: If our career isn’t yielding the stability that we want to provide for our family, let’s use that Saturday morning coffee time to take a look into what certification courses we might enroll in to better ensure our advancement.
7. Elderly/Parental care: Even if our parents are in great health, beginning a conversation with them now about what they want and need to age gracefully can save a lot of heartbreak and money down the road. Maybe they haven’t even thought of it, and our asking will trigger action from them.
8. College: We talked last month about 529 plans. If we contribute to one of those or our kids are young, college planning might be far from our minds. But there’s more to college planning than finances.
Families often don’t talk about college until it’s time to apply, but that’s too late in the game to ponder big questions. If we have kids in grades 8 and 9, now’s the time to start elevating these conversations with them about the direction in life they want to take and how to get there. This is a great conversation we can open over family dinner by asking a question about what interests them or what they imagine doing after high school.
9. Beneficiary review: Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and other financial accounts often pass according to beneficiary designations rather than the instructions in a will. If it’s been several years since we reviewed those designations, let’s take a few moments to confirm they still reflect our wishes. An email to our financial advisor this morning can help identify which accounts should be reviewed and whether any updates are needed.
10. Charitable giving: If supporting charitable causes is part of our financial plan, let’s revisit those intentions while there’s still time to act. We can use that morning coffee time to identify the organization we want to support and set up automatic contributions.
Avoid Surprise Emergency Expenses
Before heading out on a road trip, we would do a safety check: when did we last change the oil, do the tires have adequate tread and proper air pressure? A little preparation now can help us avoid a costly breakdown hundreds of miles from home.
A midyear financial check-in will let us spot potential problems while they're still easy to address. We can't anticipate every emergency, but we can make sure we've done the financial equivalent of checking the oil and inspecting the tires.
A road trip doesn't stay on course because we checked the map once. We arrive at our destination by making small adjustments along the way. A few minutes each week really can help us address important financial tasks before they become urgent ones. Revival Wealth is here to help you navigate whatever lies ahead.