Money is often a stressful topic, and the desire to feel more confident about our financial future is a shared sentiment. As we usher in a new year, financial resolutions are almost as popular as weight loss ones. But what actions have you mapped out for this year to benefit your financial life and move you closer to your dream retirement?
Here’s a blueprint for making 2024 the year you finally take control of your finances and embrace a future filled with financial confidence.
1 – Create a Detailed Financial Plan and Write it Down: If you’ve ever felt like you’re spinning your wheels financially, juggling various goals without a clear direction, you’re not alone. The first step to financial empowerment is to take the time to create a detailed financial plan. Most people are overwhelmed by this and don’t know where to start. Outline your short-term and long-term goals, including savings, retirement contributions, budgeting, and emergency fund building. Putting your plan in writing provides clarity and accountability, helping you track your progress and celebrate your successes.
If you already have a financial plan, the start of a new year is a great time to review it. What is going well? What needs to be adjusted? If you are not confident about your direction, it may be time to get a second opinion.
2 – Understand Your Risk Exposure and Align Your Investments Appropriately: The more you improve your financial education, the more confident you will become. One of the keys to financial success is understanding and managing your risk exposure. A holistic financial plan considers your risk tolerance, time horizon, and financial goals. Aligning your investments appropriately ensures that your portfolio is working in harmony with your overall strategy, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of the market.
3 – Prioritize Saving for Retirement and Planning Your Distributions: Saving for the future is a cornerstone of financial well-being. Ensure that you’re not only contributing to your retirement accounts by making it automatic each month so that other expenses can’t prevent you from doing so. Also, ensure that your investment strategies align with your retirement goals. Ask yourself, “What income will I need to live out my retirement how I want to?” Focus on strategies to create the income you need without needing to rely on the stock market to cooperate. You want guaranteed income sources so you can count on reliable income when you need it most – no matter how long you live or how the economy performs.
4 – Work with the Right Professional Who Will Educate You: Not all financial advisors are created equal, and finding the right professional can make a significant difference in your financial journey. Seek an advisor who goes beyond traditional advice, one who is committed to educating you about your financial options and empowering you to make informed decisions. A true partner in your financial journey will help you build a retirement strategy that goes beyond market trends, focusing on your unique needs and aspirations.
You deserve financial confidence and the peace of mind that comes with knowing your retirement is secure and you can never run out of money. To support you in this journey, I invite you to take advantage of our complimentaryRetirement Income for Life Blueprint. This valuable tool will guide you through the decisions you can make today to design a retirement that aligns with your dreams.
Together, let’s make 2024 the year you take control of your finances and embrace a future of financial freedom.
Wishing you a prosperous and confident New Year!
Investment advice offered through Copia Wealth Management Advisors, Inc.
Copia Wealth Management Advisors, Inc. is a registered investment advisor.
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SEPTEMBER 1, 2026
The Best Gym in San Diego Isn’t Really a Gym Anymore
Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped "athletic" from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
There’s a version of San Diego that lives in two extremes. On one side, the 5 a.m. crowd: biohackers, marathoners, people who’ve already logged a cold plunge before your alarm goes off. On the other, the after-dark crowd, the ones chasing sunset happy hours and late dinners with friends. Everyone seems to be either optimizing or unwinding, and most of us feel like we’re failing at both.
Fit, San Diego’s reigning Best Gym for the third year running, has built its entire identity around erasing that divide.
Walk into one of Fit’s three San Diego locations on a Tuesday afternoon and the lines blur fast. Someone’s mid-set on the squat rack. Someone else has a laptop open at a café table a few feet away, half-working, half-people-watching. A group is trading plans for the weekend’s event by the recovery lounge. Nobody’s in a rush to leave.
“We’re not competing for the same people,” says Emily Waybright, Public Relations Manager at Fit, addressing the arrival of a national luxury gym chain in San Diego this year. “We don’t really feel like we’re in the gym category. It’s this unique thing.”
That unique thing has a name now. Earlier this year, Fit quietly dropped “athletic” from its brand, from Fit Athletic Clubs to simply Fit, and started calling itself something new: a social wellness club.
It’s a small wording change with a bigger idea behind it. Fit was never built around escaping the workday. It was built around the people who genuinely like what they do, and who want workouts, work, and friendships to happen in the same place instead of three separate ones. Because sometimes red light therapy with a stranger turns into weekend plans.
Fit’s philosophy traces back to its founder, who started the brand nearly two decades ago after failing to find a gym he actually wanted to belong to. He looked instead to the old-school country club, where people came for a shared interest and stayed for the community. His version was made for a younger generation, minus the golf, plus the loud music.
Which makes it a little ironic that the very award putting Fit back in the spotlight this year is Best Gym.
What does the best traditional gym look like when the definition of a gym is becoming less traditional? It’s a fair question, and Fit’s answer is that the fitness industry itself is shifting. The 45-minutes-in, 45-minutes-out model is giving way to something closer to a genuine third space, the kind of role the office and the bar used to play before remote work and changing nightlife habits rearranged how people spend their time
For Fit, community isn’t a marketing add-on to fitness. It’s the through-line. Members aren’t just paying for a treadmill; they’re paying for an entire day of social wellness that’s built on performance, recovery, connection, and a plan for the next event on the calendar. That’s a much harder membership to walk away from.
Ambition and ease aren’t opposites here, they exist side by side, where passion and play share the same morning. On September 12, Fit is hosting Sol, a full day wellness festival at Fit Social. The morning focuses on wellness classes and vendors and then the evening is a full party with multiple DJ sets and an open bar. Think of it as a kick-off to locals’ summer in San Diego.
Ready to see what a social wellness club actually looks like? Visit fitclubs.com, or follow along at @thefitclubs on Instagram.
Growing up, Laika Nur, MD, Scripps Clinic sports medicine specialist, loved watching beach volleyball when the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour came to her hometown of Chicago. A talented volleyball player herself, she remembers sitting in the stands all day, and once, even got a couple autographs. Years later, Dr. Nur was attending a professional event focused on women’s sports, and the discussion turned to a new professional women’s volleyball league. The general manager and coaching staff for San Diego’s team, the Mojo, happened to be in attendance, and Dr. Nur took the opportunity to ask them if they needed a team doctor. Flash forward to the Mojo’s inaugural 2024 season, when Dr. Nur officially became the team physician. Click here to read more about Dr. Nur and how she incorporates lessons she learned on the court into her practice.
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Your feet and ankles probably aren’t something you give much thought to—until something goes wrong. Orthopedic surgeons at Scripps Clinic are on the leading edge of foot and ankle reconstruction, treating patients with sports injuries, deformities, traumatic injuries and other conditions. That includes repairing torn Achilles tendons with a minimally invasive procedure that shrinks the incision site to less than a centimeter, and performing advanced ankle replacement on some patients with ankle arthritis. Read more about Scripps’ innovations in foot and ankle care here.
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Mai Vue was just 34 weeks pregnant when she delivered her baby. Her pregnancy had been complicated, and she’d had a recent second trimester pregnancy loss, which led to her receiving specialized care from Sean Daneshmand, MD, a Scripps Clinic perinatologist who oversees high-risk pregnancies. Dr. Daneshmand and his team took care of Mai during her pregnancy, through the birth of her healthy baby girl and beyond. Mai was part of a program Scripps launched to provide support to new moms in the weeks and months after delivery. The postpartum program, known as Scripps Health’s Fourth Trimester Continuum of Care, provides care for women with high-risk pregnancies to optimize their health after childbirth and reduce the risk of complications in future pregnancies. Click here to learn more.
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It’s estimated that one in five people in the U.S. will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. When you factor in living in a sun-soaked city like San Diego and the outdoorsy lifestyle that comes with it, that figure can jump to as high as one in three, which makes early detection and intervention all the more important. Dermatologists at Bighorn Mohs and Dermatology Center are using innovative imaging methods and advanced surgical techniques to diagnose and treat skin cancer. For certain cancers in sensitive spots, like the face, dermatologists perform Mohs surgery, removing skin tissue layer by layer until reaching healthy, cancer-free tissue. They also use a process called immunohistochemistry to view tissue samples taken during Mohs surgery in far greater detail than previous methods. Read more about how Scripps is advancing skin cancer care here.
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When endurance athlete Isaac Sanchez learned he had cancer, he felt blindsided. He was healthy, surfed often and was training for an Ironman triathlon. But he had to put that on hold to undergo treatment. His physicians at Scripps Cancer Center developed a plan to treat the cancer in his tonsil and lymph nodes that included six-and-a-half weeks of near-daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy. He also worked with a Scripps Cancer Center dietitian to enhance his nutrition to promote strength and healing. Today, Isaac’s back to doing what he loves. Read more of his story here.
For more nutrition, wellness, and healthy living tips, sign up for the San Diego Health newsletter here.
