Blog

Spring Cleaning

April 21, 2026
by David Simeone

For me, the beginning of the new year represents a time to start afresh, set goals, and check off items that you should do on a regular basis but may not have time to always do. I struggle sometimes because it can also be a time of setting yourself up for failure if you go through another year without accomplishing much on your list.

In reality, that happens to everybody and there are usually many strategies on how to improve your approach. But for now, I think if you can pull out a few gems from these ideas and make them a habit that is performed each year around this time, then you will come ahead…way ahead of the curve.

1. PORTFOLIO REVIEW:

Review your investment performance over the last year. Working with a financial advisor will allow you to quickly gauge your progress and help you to be proactive on any change(s) that you may need to make with your investment accounts.

Rebalance: Are you tired of the volatility in the market?
Consider changing your risk alignment. You can rebalance and change your risk alignment if necessary to put you in a better position to meet your longer-term goals.
Consider using products in your portfolio to buffer some of the risk or even protect your assets under various conditions. Being able to go to bed each night without excessively worrying about your investments is a valuable place to be.
Likewise, if you think your investments should have performed better, reallocate your allocation to become more aggressive. Keep in mind, from my experience, a more valuable action can be based on the venerable statement – “time in the market is a better benchmark then timing the market”.

2. TAXES:

This is tax preparation time and as painful or annoying as this can be at times, this is a good time to review your tax rates, missed deductions, upcoming annual contributions to retirement plans, etc.

Why do these things? Here are some of the reasons:

Did your income put you over into the next higher tax bracket? If so, look at ways to minimize this effect so that you are paying less in taxes.
Did you utilize one of the most powerful tax reduction strategies such as Qualfied Charitable Distributions?
If you exceeded the income limits which prevented you from making IRA contributions, what are some ways to reduce your income and give you the opportunity to make Roth contributions?
Have you considered Roth IRA conversions? For most people, the conversion process involves paying a tax bill during the year of conversion. Is it worth doing? The answer is not the same for everyone.
If you’ve completed your 2025 tax returns and discovered you’re getting a big refund, you might want to change your W-2 withholding rates to keep more of your money in your pay instead of giving the government a free loan to use your money until your taxes are due.¹

3. RETIREMENT PLAN CONTRIBUTIONS

Are you aware of what the contribution limits to your retirement accounts are this year? Contribution limits tend to go up each year. Did you get an end-of-the-year bonus or raise? Consider using some of that towards a higher retirement plan contribution.

For IRAs, the contribution limits in 2026 are²:

4. REVIEW YOUR CREDIT HISTORY

In today’s world, it is especially important for you to protect your assets, your credit history and your identify.

One way of doing that is by checking your credit score and making sure that no one has opened any credit card account in your name without your knowledge. This is especially important if you plan on applying for a mortgage or home equity loan.

All three of the main credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion – allow you to request one free credit report per year. Instead of asking for them all at once, consider staggering each individual request over the course of the year.

You can request these credit reports online at annualcreditreport.com.³

Consider freezing your credit. You can do this when you contact the above credit reporting agencies. A credit freeze is one of the most important steps you can take to protect yourself from having identity thieves open credit accounts in your name. Freezes prohibit consumer credit reporting agencies from disclosing the contents of a credit report to any person requesting the data. Without that credit file, lenders generally will not extend credit to you – or anyone claiming to be you. In other words, a credit freeze helps to prevent new credit accounts from being established in your name.

Freezing your credit (also known as placing a security freeze) is becoming increasingly important. With nearly all of our financial and personal information living in the cloud, we are increasingly vulnerable to fraud and identity theft. In fact, identity theft accounted for $16.8 billion in losses spread across 16.7 million victims in 2017. A credit freeze won’t protect you from someone stealing your identity, but it will make it more difficult for them to use your stolen identity to open fraudulent credit accounts in your name.

When you are ready to freeze your credit report, you can contact the credit bureaus to establish a credit freeze by phone or online at the sites and numbers below. I have found that completing the process online is more convenient.

Equifax: Online or by phone at 1-800-685-1111

Experian: Online or by phone at 1-888-397-3742

TransUnion: Online or by phone at 1-888-909-8872

The time to do this may be now, because as the year proceeds forward and you become more involved in activities, you are less likely to think about this again until next year – or hopefully not, until someone opens up a credit card in your name.

5. DOCUMENT END-OF-LIFE DECISIONS

It’s important for people of all ages to make sure they’ve documented their wishes should they become medically incapacitated. For a couple, when you go to an attorney to get these plans documented, you will end up with six total documents. For each of you, these documents consists of the following⁴:

Last Will and Testament,
Durable Power of Attorney,
and a Health Care Power of Attorney/Proxy.

At the very least, assign someone you trust as a health care proxy who can make these decisions on your behalf and give someone financial power of attorney to handle your financial affairs.

Also, review your account beneficiaries to make sure that the beneficiaries for your retirement accounts and life insurance policies are up-to-date and that your will still reflects your wishes. Ideally, you want to say how your possessions are passed on to your next generation, not the state.

Have you considered living in a location that is equipped as a continual care facility that has the capabilities of providing the appropriate level of care from independent care to assisted living to skilled nursing care? NOW is the time to visit these facilities to get a comfort level of what could be available to you in the future – don’t wait until you are forced to make this type of decision.

6. PROTECT YOUR ONLINE SECURITY

Most people are aware of this item, but they routinely put it off until a future time that never happens. NOW is the time to do this. Protect your online security by changing your online passwords to something that will be difficult for a hacker to figure out. Don’t use words spelled out normally. Instead use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols that don’t make sense when reading them. Use a password manager to keep track of all of your passwords.

Avoid reusing passwords. If you use the same password for multiple accounts, a hacker who steals a password on one site could use it to access other online accounts.

7. BACK UP YOUR DATA

If you can’t remember the last time you backed up your computer, NOW is the time to do it.

If you don’t have the time or knowledge needed to do a full system backup, focus on saving your personal files to a flash drive, external hard drive or to the cloud.

If you have numerous photos and videos stored on your tablet or smartphone, back them up to the cloud or transfer them to your computer.

Many of these items can be looked at as burdensome. However, if you set aside a regular time every year to address these issues, it may become an easier goal to complete each year.

Sources

Disclaimer: Neither Firm Foundations Financial Group, LLC or the CFD companies provide tax or legal advice. Tax laws are subject to change. Please consult a qualified tax professional regarding your individual situation.