Topic: Finance · Type: Timely · Reading time: ~6 min

Nearly 7 in 10 people end the year with financial regrets, according to NerdWallet's annual survey. The most common ones — not saving enough, not paying down debt faster — aren't about lacking the knowledge. They're about missing the window. December 31 is one of the few hard deadlines personal finance actually has. Most money mistakes are recoverable. These ones aren't.

Here are five year-end money moves to make before the calendar resets, ordered by the ones most likely to cost you if you skip them.

1. Check what you've already realised in your investment accounts

Before you do anything else with your portfolio, pull up your year-to-date gain/loss report from your broker. If you hold investments in a taxable account — not a pension, not a tax-sheltered wrapper like an ISA (UK), PEA (France), or similar — this number determines what you owe in tax next spring.

Tax-loss harvesting is the strategy of selling positions that are underwater to offset gains you've already locked in elsewhere. If you sold a tech stock at a €5,000 profit in March and now hold a position sitting at a €3,000 loss, selling that loser before December 31 could cancel out most of the gain. In many jurisdictions, if your losses exceed your gains, you can apply the remainder against ordinary income up to a cap — $3,000 in the US, for instance — and carry anything beyond that into future years.

One important note: the wash-sale rule (US) and equivalent regulations elsewhere mean you can't sell a security at a loss and immediately repurchase the identical one. You typically need to wait 30 days or buy a similar-but-not-identical replacement. The trade date matters, not the settlement date — so act before December 31, not on it.

Worth knowing: Cryptocurrency is explicitly excluded from wash-sale rules in the US as of 2025. This means you can sell crypto at a loss, immediately repurchase the same tokens, and still claim the tax benefit — a flexibility unavailable with stocks.

This isn't a strategy for everyone. If you hold long-term positions you never intend to sell, realising a loss now might cost you more in missed upside than you save in taxes. But if you have taxable gains and underwater holdings, the window to act closes at midnight on December 31.

2. Look at what you're leaving on the table with employer benefits

Open enrolment periods typically run October through December in most countries, and the majority of people either skip the review entirely or re-enrol in whatever they had last year by default. That default costs more than most people realise.

The most time-sensitive benefit to check is a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) — or its local equivalent. FSAs let you set aside pre-tax money for healthcare costs, but the funds are typically "use it or lose it." Any balance remaining on December 31 is gone. If you contributed to an FSA this year, log in, check your balance, and book any outstanding appointments — optometrist, dentist, physio — before year end.

Beyond FSA spend-down, now is also the right time to review your health insurance elections for next year. Most people optimise for the lowest monthly premium and underestimate how much they'll actually use the plan. Compare the total cost of different health plans — premium plus realistic out-of-pocket — not just the headline number.

3. Audit your retirement contributions against this year's limits

Retirement contribution limits reset annually, and unused room doesn't carry forward in most countries. In the US, the 2025 limit for 401(k) contributions is $23,500, with a catch-up of $7,500 for those 50 and older (and a special $11,250 catch-up for those aged 60–63 under new rules). For IRAs, the 2025 limit is $7,000, though IRA contributions can be made until the tax filing deadline in April 2026, giving you extra time.

If you've had a pay rise, a bonus, or simply haven't checked your contribution rate since you set it up, now is the time. The asymmetry here is worth stating plainly: money in a tax-advantaged account compounds without being dragged down by annual capital gains or dividend tax. Missing a year's worth of contribution room is a silent, permanent cost — you can't make it up later.

A useful reference point: Fidelity recommends a combined contribution rate (employee plus employer match) of around 15% of pre-tax income. If you're below that, a year-end bonus is a clean opportunity to close the gap.

4. Spend 30 minutes on your insurance coverage

Insurance is the financial task that gets deferred the most. A survey of US adults found that nearly a third have never reviewed their coverage since they first signed up — and the average policy-holder overpays by a measurable margin compared to those who shop annually.

The year-end review doesn't need to be exhaustive. Three questions get you most of the way there:

Has your situation changed? A new flat, a new car, a new dependent, a salary increase — any of these can create gaps in your current coverage or mean you're paying for protection you no longer need. If you've recently taken on more financial responsibility, your coverage should reflect that.

Are you still getting a competitive rate? Most insurers reserve their best prices for new customers. After a year or two, loyalty costs you. A 20-minute comparison on your car or contents insurance is often worth hundreds in annual savings.

Do you have the policies you're likely to need and lack the ones you think are mandatory but aren't? The most commonly overlooked insurance gaps tend to sit in liability coverage — what happens if something you own damages someone else's property, or if you're sued. Umbrella policies covering this are typically cheap relative to the risk they cover.

5. Calculate your actual net worth — just once

This sounds less urgent than the others, and in terms of hard deadlines, it is. But it belongs on this list because it's the move most people avoid most consistently, and the avoidance is rarely about time. It's about not wanting to know.

Net worth is assets minus liabilities: what you own minus what you owe. It's a more honest signal of financial progress than income, because income tells you how much flows in, not how much stays. The number doesn't need to be big or growing fast — you just need to know it.

A once-a-year calculation gives you something no amount of monthly budgeting gives you: a directional signal. Are the decisions you're making actually compounding into something? Is the debt load shrinking? Is the gap between what you earn and what you keep improving? Without a baseline, you're optimising in the dark.

Do this in December, record it somewhere, and compare it in December next year. The trend over time is what matters, not the snapshot.

The pattern underneath all five

Each of these moves has a version that gets easier with practice and a version that gets more expensive the longer you delay. Tax loss harvesting gets complicated when positions age into different brackets. Retirement room disappears. FSA money vanishes. Insurance gaps emerge quietly until the moment you need to claim.

What they share is that none of them require a financial advisor, significant money, or unusual expertise. They require about three to four hours in December, a willingness to look at numbers that might be uncomfortable, and the basic recognition that the calendar resets whether you're ready or not.

The regret data is consistent year after year: most people wish they'd started something sooner. Year-end is one of the few moments where acting now and acting sooner are the same thing.