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As the year kicks off, the calendar comes out, and you start to weave together a blueprint for the months ahead. The spine underlying it all — our financial must-dos — makes the fun stuff possible. Here are a few money moves to make, and when, for a prosperous year:
Create a 2026 spending budget
Start by listing recurring fixed expenses, such as your mortgage or rent payment, health insurance premiums, utilities, and so forth.
For your discretionary spending, your 2025 outlays provide a guide. I review my credit card end-of-the-year roundups, which summarize the basic buckets from health care to entertainment to restaurants and air travel. They aren’t perfect in terms of always putting charges in the right category, but they provide a pretty good rundown of where your money is going, so you can spot areas to cut back.
Check your emergency fund
You want this account to have enough money to cover unexpected life events, such as a job loss or a medical emergency. Having cash on hand to cover living expenses for a few months will also help you stay calm when the economy feels shaky. The ideal amount to have set aside in an emergency savings account is roughly a year’s worth of expenses, but if that sounds intimidating, start with a goal of a few months.
Next, consider the “this year-only” expenses in your budgeting plans. For example, you might have costs associated with a class you’re taking or upcoming travel. My husband and I have a trip to Ireland on our calendar in March. While the airfare has already been paid, we’ll have expenses for accommodations, meals, and no doubt a few Irish-made goodies to bring home.
Read more: What is an emergency savings fund, and why do you need one?
Review your credit report
The three big credit bureaus — Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax — provide one free credit report annually. Request one at AnnualCreditReport.com. When you get it, look for mistakes. Your name might be misspelled, or your Social Security number is incorrect, which can ding your ability to get a credit card or loan.
If you find an error, contact the credit bureau and explain the misinformation. You can dispute this online or by phone, but you will need proof of the mistake. A credit bureau typically has 30 days after receiving a dispute to investigate and verify the information with the company that provided it.
Read more: How to dispute errors in your credit report
Pay any quarterly estimated taxes you owe if you’re self-employed.
If you don’t have enough paid ahead of time toward your 2025 tax bill, you may be hit with a penalty. That penalty is avoidable as long as you pay at least 90% of the tax for the current year or 100% of the tax you owed the previous year, whichever is smaller.
The fourth (and final) estimated quarterly tax payment for 2025 is due Jan. 15, 2026. For federal returns, you can find the address for filing your payments and due dates as part of Form 1040-ES. This payment covers income earned from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.
Read more: When are quarterly taxes due in 2026?
Make a date with your spouse or partner to talk about money.
I advise having these get-togethers a couple of times a year, so they are not so stressful. A team cheerleading conversation on your dreams and goals on Valentine’s Day is a perfectly romantic way to start the year. Love, actually, is all about honesty and financial openness.
Review your tax-free health care Flexible Spending Account (FSA) if you have one.
Unlike an HSA, most FSAs are “use it or lose it,” but many employer plans provide a grace period that gives you until March 15 to add eligible medical expenses from the previous plan year, so you can use remaining funds before they’re forfeited. Tap the funds to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses, including deductibles and co-payments, unreimbursed dental and vision expenses, eyeglasses, or even hearing aids.
Pay your taxes
Your personal federal income tax returns are due before midnight on April 15. That’s also when a first estimated tax payment for 2026 is due, as well as most state tax returns. The remaining estimated tax dates for 2026 are: June 15, Sept. 15, and Jan. 15, 2027.
Fund your retirement.
If you haven’t already put money into your 2025 retirement account, you have until April 15. For those who have an employer-provided retirement plan, you should be good. That said, as a reminder, for 2025, you can contribute up to $23,500 to a 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan. And you can contribute up to $7,000 to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). If you’re aged 50 or older and qualify, you can contribute an additional $7,500 to an employer-sponsored plan and $1,000 to an IRA.
This is also a good time to start thinking about how to boost your retirement contributions in 2026.
Read more: Here are the 2026 contribution limits for 410(k)s and IRAs.
Pay attention to required minimum distributions
You must take your first required minimum distributions (RMDs) or withdrawals from IRAs and workplace plans for the year in which you reach age 73. However, you can delay taking the first RMD until April 1 of the following year. If you reached age 73 in 2025, and you didn’t take your first distribution last year, you must take that initial RMD by April 1, 2026, and the second RMD by Dec. 31, 2026.
One exception that may let you delay your RMD from an employer-sponsored 401(k) or 403(b) plan is if you are still on the job.
Most financial services firms will calculate your RMD for you and alert you in January about what your required amount will be for the coming year. You can automate your withdrawals and have them pulled throughout the year. You can also have taxes withheld in advance.
If you don’t take the required minimum distribution, you will pay a penalty of 25% on the amount.
Double-check your withholding.
After your taxes are out the door, it’s time to review if you had too much or too little withheld from your paycheck last year to cover your tax bill. That’s why this could be a good time to tweak the amount of income tax withheld from your paycheck, though you can change your withholding at any time.
Do this by filling out the Form W-4. The form instructs you to use the IRS’s online tax withholding estimator tool or fill out the form’s worksheet to determine how much to withhold from your sources of income. You’ll enter the amount on a separate “extra withholding” line.
Do a mid-year financial checkup
Meet with your financial adviser if you work with one, or take a review of your asset allocation on your own, to see how your investments are currently balanced — what percentage are in stocks, bonds, and cash — and if they’re in line with your goals and risk profile.
Double-check, too, that your investments are spread across a wide range of asset classes, from large companies and dividend-paying stocks to emerging growth firms to global stocks and bond fund indexes.
A standard calculation many financial planners use for determining what percentage of your portfolio should be in stocks is to subtract your age from 110. So, a 60-year-old would have 50% in stocks and the rest in bonds and cash. If market swings make you nervous or you are nearing retirement, you may want to go with a more conservative investing approach.
Check your beneficiaries.
You may think you’ve completed this task in deciding who will receive your benefits after your death, but events like divorce and deaths in a family can change the game. Every financial adviser has had to deliver bad news to a second wife that their late husband’s ex-wife is inheriting his money because he never changed his beneficiary designations.
Mid-year is a good time to review your retirement plans and life insurance policies to ensure the beneficiaries are correct.
Open a 529
School is starting, and those of you with young children may have future education on their minds as they head off to the bus stop. If so, let that spur you to open a 529 education savings plan and/or enroll in your state’s college tuition savings program for residents.
Check your COLA
The Social Security Administration will announce the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2027 this month. It’s typically around the third week, following the release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) third-quarter CPI-W data. The new monthly payment kicks in Jan. 1 to more than 72 million retired senior citizens and disabled workers.
Read more: How to find out your Social Security COLA increase
Take advantage of charitable giving
Giving is what this month is all about, as Thanksgiving brings us together to give thanks for all we’ve been given.
You can give away up to $19,000 per person to as many people as you want without filing a federal gift tax return. The lucky and grateful person who receives your gifted money generally does not have to pay taxes on it.
You may be able to claim charitable contributions for 2026 if you have write-offs exceeding $32,200 for married couples filing jointly. For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $16,100 for tax year 2026.
Consider Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs)
If you are 70 1⁄2 or older, a direct transfer from an IRA to a qualified charity (QCD) must be done by the end of the tax year.
You can have your custodian or retirement plan administrator send the withdrawal directly to a qualified nonprofit, which keeps it off your individual tax return. The annual limit for QCDs in 2026 is $111,000 per individual.
One caution: 1099 Forms don’t show that the distribution was donated to charity. As the IRA owner, you need to let your accountant know and make sure they don’t include the distribution in income.
Run your numbers on ramping up unreimbursed medical expenses.
In 2026, you can deduct unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. There’s still time to schedule appointments and procedures that will pump up the amount of your deductible expenses.
Max out your Health Savings Account (HSA) if you have one.
Health savings accounts let you put money aside for qualifying health expenses, tax-free, if you have a high deductible health plan. Distributions for qualified health expenses are tax-free, too.
For 2026, the maximum HSA contribution for individuals is up to $4,400 if you are covered by a high-deductible health plan just for yourself, or $8,750 if you have coverage for your family. At age 55, individuals can contribute an additional $1,000.
If you’re self-employed, consider setting up a solo 401 (k) plan.
To make contributions for 2026, you must establish the plan by Dec. 31.
Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including “Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future,” “In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work,” and “Never Too Old to Get Rich.” Follow her on Bluesky and X.
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