July 2025
Barbara O’Neill, Ph.D., CFP®, AFC®
Distinguished Professor and Extension Financial Management Specialist Emeritus
Rutgers Cooperative Extension
In July, we officially cross the halfway point of the year. This is a great time to do a mid-year financial checkup to assess your financial progress and identify actions to take during the remainder of 2025.
Below is a list of ten mid-year financial planning tasks to consider performing in July:
Review Your Spending Plan (Budget)- Compare actual spending during January to June to your planned budget and adjust the budget accordingly for the remainder of the year. Be sure to anticipate higher amounts for spending categories that routinely increase (e.g., rent and insurance premiums).
Check Your Credit Report- Request a free credit report from annualcreditreport.com and review it for errors and evidence of identity theft. Also make a note of closed accounts (by you and/or creditors) and entities that requested information about your credit history.
Evaluate Savings Goals- Assess progress on your short-term and long-term savings goals (e.g., emergency fund, vacation, home purchase, and retirement). If you planned to save $5,000 during 2025, you should have $2,500 saved by now. If not, step up your savings during the next six months.
Save A Raise- Plan to save all or part of a raise if your salary increased on July 1. For example, you can increase 401(k), IRA, or other retirement plan contributions. If you were contributing 6% of your pay to a tax-deferred savings plan, you might raise your contribution to 8%.
Rebalance Your Investment Portfolio- Realign your asset allocation if it shifted significantly from your target weightings. For example, a portfolio that started as 50% stocks, 30% bonds, and 20% cash is now 65% stocks, 20% bonds, and 15% cash. Rebalancing can be done by selling overweighted assets or with new deposits.
Organize Tax Documents- Set up a filing system for 2025 tax-relevant documents that might presently be scattered around your home. Examples include pay stubs, receipts, bank and brokerage statements, and IRS confirmations of estimated tax payments.
Track Health Care Spending- Review out-of-pocket medical expenses for the first half of the year and remaining funds in your health savings account (HSA) and flexible spending account (FSA). Adjust remaining contributions to these accounts as needed.
Plan for Upcoming Expenses- Budget for back-to-school, birthdays, holidays, vacations and travel, or any other known large expenses for the remainder of 2025. To do so may require increasing income or spending less. You can also spread savings for short-term goals over your remaining 13 paychecks (if paid biweekly), 26 paychecks (if paid weekly), or 6 paychecks (if paid monthly; e.g., a pension or Social Security).
Estimate Your Tax Liability- Complete a pro-forma (projected) 2025 income tax return using information about income and expenses (e.g., child care) to date. Make a note of tax-relevant changes from last year to this year such as a higher income, marriage, the birth of a child, or the start of required minimum distributions from retirement savings plans. A mid-year tax review will help avoid underpaying or overpaying taxes.
Shop Around- Take the time to shop around for lower prices and better options on bank accounts, insurance policies, utilities (e.g., cell phone, TV, and internet), and more. Use the Rule of Three Worksheet to list product or service features of interest and to compare three different vendors.