Retirement Quick Tips with Ashley

It's Sunday and I'm wrapping up the week by summarizing this week's theme: Year-End Financial Checklist 2025

In case you missed any episodes this week, here's what we covered.

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm sharing with you my year-end financial checklist. With only a few weeks before the end of the calendar year, there's still time to complete these before year-end.

Today, I'm talking about cleaning up your accounts and doing a little housekeeping before the end of the year.

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm sharing with you my year-end financial checklist. With only a few weeks before the end of the calendar year, there's still time to complete these before year-end.

Today, I'm talking about projecting your income for taxes and 2026 planning.

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm sharing with you my year-end financial checklist. With only a few weeks before the end of the calendar year, there's still time to complete these before year-end.

Today, I'm talking about reviewing your allocation to stocks and rebalancing

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm sharing with you my year-end financial checklist. With only a few weeks before the end of the calendar year, there's still time to complete these before year-end.

Today, I'm talking about checking your retirement contributions for the year to see if you're on track.

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm sharing with you my year-end financial checklist. With only a few weeks before the end of the calendar year, there's still time to complete these before year-end.

Today, I'm talking about tax loss harvesting. If you have taxable investment accounts, you'll want to look closely at your gains and losses for the year.

Welcome to The Retirement Quick Tips Podcast, your daily guide to preparing for and living your best retirement. I'm your host Ashley Micciche, and this week, I'm sharing with you a Year-End Financial Checklist for 2025.

A handful of things to check off your list before the end of the calendar year, including making sure you're on track for your retirement contributions, assessing where you're at financially, and tax harvesting in taxable investment accounts.

It's Sunday and I'm wrapping up the week by summarizing this week's theme: Why Most Americans Never Become Wealthy

In case you missed any episodes this week, here's what we covered.

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm talking about why most Americans never reach financial independence and become wealthy.

Debt and spending decisions that start in early adulthood, and patterns of debt accumulation and never getting out of that hamster wheel is why most americans never reach financial independence or build enough wealth to get there.

A few weeks ago, I spoke to a class of high schoolers taking an elective on personal finance, and this is the alterative path I offered to them that will help make financial independence more likely.

Ok, first of all - as I said earlier this week: Follow the old nursery rhyme: 1st comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage. Don't deviate from this path. Get married, then have kids. And stay married.

Beyond that, here's the path for someone seeking financial independence that I laid out and would recommend to every single teenager contemplating life after high school and wanting to get started right:

This week on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast, I'm talking about why most Americans never reach financial independence and become wealthy.

So far this week, I've talked about the typical path that many Americans take that set them up for failure when it comes to reaching financial independence:

• Taking on student loan debt (average repayment = $500+ a month for 10+ years)

• Buying a car (2nd highest expense for young people behind housing. Average monthly car payment for Gen Z today = $577). For many, it's not unusual to carry car payments of $1000 or more.

• Average credit card debt is $6700 at 23% interest - another few hundred a month in paying it off.

Then we come to the biggest expense - housing. The median monthly mortgage payment for U.S. homebuyers today is currently $2,259. That reflects today's higher interest rates and higher home prices. It's not surprising then that the average age of first-time homebuyer is 38. For many of you listening, you bought your first house when you were in your late 20s or early 30s. Today's first time homebuyers are now middle aged.