05 Dec 2024 2024 Finances Wrapped

Several years ago, Spotify started a viral marketing campaign which provided music streamers with a nicely packaged summary of their year in music listening. 2024 Spotify Wrapped was released earlier this week so you may have been inundated with people sharing their personalized results. Spotify Wrapped (and now an Apple Music Replay competitor version) shows you answers to questions like… How much did you listen to music, podcasts, or audiobooks on their app? What were your most listened to songs? Artists? Podcasts? Did your music taste change throughout the year from different genres? Spotify also gives funny nicknames of your listening phases, like “Pink Pilates Princess Strut Pop” or “Witchy Beatlesque Classic Rock” or “Van Life Neo Mellow Folk Pop,” to name a few. They also release global top lists and trends so you can see where your individual tastes line up with broader trends.

I find the top fan percentages of various artists especially intriguing. If I’m a top 5% listener to Taylor Swift, which equates to 1,498 minutes listened, how many minutes would a top 1% fan have listened to in comparison to me? I often choose playlists curated by Spotify, so in one sense, Spotify is creating my listening history for me. I think that artificially inflates how much I appear to like some songs or artists. Some songs made my top lists more because they were part of Spotify curated playlists, rather than because they were songs/artists I sought out listening. What would next year look like if I changed my habits of selecting playlists?

Reviewing my Spotify Wrapped got me thinking about what a 2024 Finances Wrapped might reveal? Was my time spent on what I want to be a higher priority item? Do my stated values line up with where my attention was focused? What sums up my current financial phase? While I don’t have the data set to compile an exact reflection of how my year went, I thought I’d give a framework of how to spend time reflecting over the past year.

Where was my time spent?

Some years are spent doing more heavy lifting in your financial life, vs other years where everything is mostly set on autopilot. Years approaching or during big life transitions often have more time spent adjusting or working on aspects of your finances. You might have new tax situations to figure out with your team of advisors and CPAs. Or you spend more time reviewing your spending – either to help confirm estimates used in your financial plan, or to see if your money is spent in line with your values. Or, not much time spent on thinking about finances at all because other things demand your attention.

Where do I gather my information?

Am I listening to a variety of voices, or one primary one? Am I reading/listening/watching to multiple sources of news with different slants? Do the loudest voices in my life know ME and my situation, or are they talking heads on CNBC? What are numbers #2-5 on your list, with the Friday Brief taking the #1 spot, of course!

What values are revealed by the above?

If my Spotify Wrapped summarized only the past month, I’d probably be in the top .0001% of listeners to the Wheels on the Bus – heavily influenced by Baker’s requests, not my own preferences. That example is lighthearted, but to translate that over to our finances, are there influences in our lives that are making our attention drift over to things that are misaligned with our values? Is what I’m choosing to input via news, emails, or conversations generating a less-than-ideal output in my thoughts or behavior? Especially in an election year, it is easy to be swept down into fear or anxiety (regardless of which side of the aisle you currently reside).

What are the other data points for my year in review?

Things like your portfolio performance, investment allocation, savings rate, and spending drawdown are also important figures to review in conjunction with those more qualitative observations. We spend time reviewing these with our clients and making adjustments as needed. These quantitative results need to examined through the lens of your broader story, though!

Are there any changes to make for next year?

I invite you to spend time reflecting on whether your mental energies were spent on the things that matter most to you. Good financial planning is making prudent decisions again and again over a long period of time. If last year revealed some behaviors that you’d like to change, what is a small tweak (or tweaks) you can do to change your trajectory? Or, are there new habits or milestones that need to be celebrated? We are here to talk through these with you and help you as we can!

The content above is for informational and educational purposes only. The links and graphs are being provided as a convenience; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by Beacon Wealthcare, nor does Beacon guarantee the accuracy of the information.