Personal finance moves to make before 2025

Lazetta Braxton, CEO of The Real Wealth Coterie, joins TheStreet to dish out some last minute finance advice before the new year.

Transcript

00:00So what are some of the year-end moves we should be making in order to set us up for a good new year?

00:08I really encourage people to take a look at their paycheck and see what they have contributed to their

00:15retirement accounts year-to-date

00:18We're getting close to the end of the year. So it may be difficult to reach those limits

00:23So I'll share what the limits are for 2025. So for every day

00:29401k 403b etc retirement plans an individual can contribute up to

00:3523,500 for 2025 so now check with your payroll

00:40Department if you are on 26, you know pay periods you can divide that amount

00:46over the course of the year and start setting a goal if you can't reach the

00:5223,500 at least you know what it is for next year

00:55The other idea is for those who are aged 50 or older you get a catch-up contribution as well, too

01:00And now with the new law for those who are 60 to 63, you can have a catch-up limit up to

01:0811,250 I know these sounds like big numbers

01:11But it's good to have goals and work towards them and then for those who are eligible for IRAs

01:18That's another way to invest but that's based on your adjusted gross income

01:22There are big numbers, but they're only big numbers if you don't make them digestible, right?

01:26If you take a look at your paycheck and say, okay

01:29This is the goal that I want to make at the end of the year out of every paycheck

01:32It is this amount and that is actually may not be that daunting of a challenge if you look at it

01:38This is how much money I need to take out of my paycheck

01:41Every paycheck. Yeah, and that's why I said know how many pay periods you're paid

01:47Some people are paid monthly. Some people are paid twice a month or the typical 26 pay periods in a year

01:53So if you take that number, let's say twenty three thousand five hundred

01:57It's roughly like seven

01:58I mean nine hundred dollars a pay period and why I have people look at their paycheck because they usually are

02:04Contributing based on a percentage so they have no idea what that dollar amount equates to so you're right

02:10Do it in bite-sized pieces

02:12Per paycheck know what that dollar amount and keep moving towards those annual IRS limits. Are there any

02:20more

02:21retirement planning

02:23tips or tools that we should be looking at besides that as we head into the end of the year and going to the

02:30now I mentioned the the IRAs that you can invest in the nice thing about those is that you can contribute up to the

02:37Tax filing date of April 15th when we're talking about employer plans

02:42That is a hard stop at the end of the year 1231 pay period

02:47Some investors are also looking at ways that they can sell some securities or stocks that haven't done so well

02:54So they're taking the loss and applying it to some of the capital gains that they may have heard by holding ETFs in the like

03:01Exchange traded funds, so that's called tax loss harvesting. That could be a great strategy for investors as well, too