The 15-Minute Financial Checkup: Tackle These 5 Tasks To Prepare for 2025

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With the end of the year fast approaching, now is a great time to review your finances and set yourself up for a strong new year financially. The good news is that you don’t necessarily have to spend a ton of time analyzing your current finances to prepare for 2025.

While a thorough review can help in some situations, you can tackle the essentials with a quick checkup. You might not be able to get through all of these in 15 minutes, depending on how deep you dive into each category, but you can at least give them a cursory overview in that timeframe and see if anything needs further examination. Without further ado, let’s dive into our financial checkup.

Review Your Net Worth Progress

Knowing your net worth gives you a quick snapshot of your overall financial health. If you don’t know your net worth, there are apps you can use to automatically calculate it. Once you do know your net worth and have that automated, track your progress, suggested Emily Luk, CEO and cofounder of Plenty

If you made progress in 2024, then you know you’re at least generally on the right track; yet if your net worth is decreasing, that’s a sign you may need to dig into the numbers more to figure out if you need to make changes. That said, some gains or losses could be due to factors such as fluctuations in the stock market. If you have the time, it’s good to look deeper at factors such as your spending, saving and investments to see if the net worth changes reflect a deviation from your intended goals or if the changes are normal variance.

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Check Your Credit Report and Credit Score

In addition to looking at your net worth, reviewing your credit report and credit score can be done quickly online and help ensure you’re on the right track.

“Do it because it’ll give you a clear picture of your financial standing, especially your creditworthiness. It’s good information to have if you’re planning for things like a mortgage or need to make any big purchases or loans in 2025,” said Paul Carlson, certified public accountant (CPA) and managing partner at Law Firm Velocity.

“Also, it’s rare but if you notice any sort of inaccuracies or unfamiliar accounts, you can dispute it right away. Errors can drag down your score and cost you money in higher interest rates,” he said.

Review Your Emergency Fund

Another way to set yourself up for success is to make sure you have enough money in your emergency fund, to the point where you’d be comfortable with situations like a job loss. Ideally, you would review whether your emergency fund aligns with your goals more often than just the end of the year, but you can at least start to build a new habit.

“I’d recommend doing it every three months or so. Emergency funds shouldn’t be something you just tick off the list and forget about because your needs keep changing,” Carlson said.

If you decide you need to make changes, such as if your monthly expenses have grown and you want a larger emergency fund, “a couple of small automatic transfers will help boost it. Even $25 a week adds up over time,” he added.

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Review Your Insurance Policies

Checking your insurance policies can help you figure out if you’re leaving yourself exposed to too much financial risk or conversely, paying too much.

“Go through all your insurance policies — home, auto, health, whatever you’ve got. The idea here is to make sure you’re adequately covered and not overpaying for anything,” Carlson said. “And, if there have been any major life changes like a new job or a new home, your insurance needs to match the current situation. There shouldn’t be any gaps or vulnerabilities.”

If you have more than 15 minutes, you might use this time to take a deeper dive into your insurance policies and see if you can save money by making a change.

“It’s generally a great opportunity to also compare your current coverage with other options. You might find better rates or that you qualify for discounts based on changes in your life like being claims-free for a certain period or bundling multiple policies with one provider,” Carlson said.

Review Subscriptions

Lastly, a quick way to cut unnecessary expenses is to review your subscriptions or similar recurring charges. 

“Cancel services you don’t use regularly,” Luk said.

You can use automated services that find and help you get rid of these subscriptions easily. Even if that just frees up a little bit of money each month, putting that toward goals like building a fully funded emergency fund or increasing your retirement contributions can add up to a big difference in 2025. 

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