• Looking back at your finances in the past year help you see where you need to make necessary changes to improve or enhance your financial future. Not only should your year-end financial checklist include an honest assessment of your debts, but you should also assess your investments and your life, health and homeowner's insurance policies.
  
  

Debt

• List your debt obligations, such as credit cards and loans that you want to pay off or pay down in the upcoming year. Consider consolidating high-interest rate credit cards to lower-rate cards to save money on interest payments. Then look at your monthly income and estimate how much extra you can pay beyond the minimum payment.
  
  For your mortgage debt, look at whether you are eligible to cancel your private mortgage insurance or PMI. PMI cancellation eligibility generally occurs when your outstanding mortgage balance is 78 percent or less than the original property value.
  
  

Investments

• When looking at your investment portfolio, you want to consider rebalancing your assets to make sure it is still suitable for you in the upcoming year. Those reaching retirement age may want to move some of their assets out of medium or high-risk investments into lower-risk investments. You also may want to consider selling any underperforming investments. Any losses you incur from the sale may be able to offset your overall gains.
  
  

Retirement Accounts

• If you have a 401k or IRA and you have not reached your contribution limit for the year, you want to consider making a catch-up contribution to do so. If you inherited an IRA from someone other than your spouse or you are over age 70 1/2, be sure you have already taken your required minimum distribution amounts from your 401k or IRA. If you don't take this distribution by the end of the year, the IRS will charge you a penalty for 50 percent of the distribution amount.
  
  

Insurance Policies

• Examine your life insurance policy to make sure everything is in order regarding beneficiaries, and decide whether your policy offers enough coverage. Contact your life insurances company if you want to increase your coverage or make any changes to your policy.
  
  When looking over your health insurance, look at how close you are to meeting your yearly deductible. If you are close, you may want to consider getting new glasses or your yearly physical before the end of the year to take advantage of meeting your deductible.
  
  You may also want to update your homeowner's or insurance policies to include new major purchases or home improvements made during the year that should be covered in next year's policy.