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Eight great year-end moves
These financial steps will help you save more money, get better insurance coverage and pay less tax.
October 12 2006: 7:23 PM EDT

By Ellen McGirt, Fortune senior writer

(Fortune Magazine)—Nathaniel Hawthorne understood the temptations of the season. “I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine,” he wrote. “So I spend almost all daylight hours in the open air.” Nice work if you can get it.

These days fall is also an ideal time to assess your financial security - before the inevitable ramping up of workplace pressures and in time to affect this year’s tax filings.

Here’s a painless eight-step program - from retirement and insurance planning to health care and philanthropy - that not only protects your future but also helps you take advantage of new tax twists (kiddie tax trap; see No. 8) that can save money and reduce anxiety. Getting your financial house in order casts its own warm glow, freeing you to enjoy falling leaves with the peace of mind Hawthorne sought long ago.

1. Rebalance your 401(k)

2. Revisit your estate plan

3. Sock it away

4. Give smarter

5. Review your health plan

6. Clean up your taxable account

7. Do a property insurance checkup

8. Check the new credits and taxes

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HypnoBudgets

It’s that time again. This year I’ve got a whole long list of resolutions. That’s right. New years is just two days away. I’ve got my list. Do you have yours? If you are like more than half of all American’s the answer is no.

Eight years ago I moved to Salt Lake with very little. My son, my computer and my car. The rest of what I had fit in my car. Clothing. Nothing else. That was it. Six months later we still hadn’t accumulated much more. So it was a devastating loss when the car broke down that last time. With no money to fix it I had to let it go. My only option was public transportation.

You know you’re in trouble when you turn on the cold water faucet and what comes out is hot water for the first three or four minutes.  Its supposed to be 102F here today.  That’s pretty hot. And I have two cats. Complete with fur. How do they stay cool in the summer? We always hear how someone left a dog in a car and they had a heat stroke but what about our cats?

What do beans and left over salad have in common? Both can be tossed into a burrito for a cheap, filling meal.

Plasma donation. I does it.


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