Picture the last week of December. You're not thinking about your 401(k), you're thinking about call coverage, family, maybe a case that ran long. Somewhere in the back of your mind is a folder labeled "financial stuff, deal with it in January." By the time you open that folder, almost everything inside it is already decided, by the calendar.

In this episode, Jared walks through three specific things that still have a live window right now, before December 31: confirming your 401(k) deferral is actually on pace to hit this year's ceiling (which climbs to $35,750 if you turn 60 through 63 at any point in 2026), making sure any charitable giving you intend to complete actually settles by year-end rather than just getting decided, and getting your full-year income projection right so you can use withholding, not a January estimated payment, to retroactively cure any underpayment against your safe harbor threshold.

He also covers the one habit worth retiring completely: treating the year-end financial review as something you get to in January, once every one of those three windows has already closed.