Make one last round of charitable donations, whether it's cash, appreciated stock (you can take the current value as a deduction, not your purchase price) or high-quality goods. Feeling charitable but indecisive about which nonprofit should get your money?

Give money or securities to what's known as a donor-advised fund. You can take an immediate deduction this year while waiting until next year or beyond to distribute the money.

Sound upper crust? Maybe, but you don't have to be Rockefeller-rich to play; Fidelity just lowered the initial investment on its Charitable Gift Fund (charitablegift.org) from $10,000 to $5,000.