What is your top New Year’s resolution this year? Is it to get on top of your finances…finally?
According to the comparison site GoCompare that resolution the fifth most popular one that Brits are making right now.
Given the torrid time we’ve had with our money over the last couple of years, it’s not a surprise that many of us really want to get a handle on our hard-earned.
In fact, investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown say that more than one in three of us will make a financial resolution this year, rising to two thirds of people aged 18-34.
However, the bad news they say is that a fifth of our New Year resolutions fail with a week…just a week…after we make them!
So what hope have any of us of carrying out our plan of getting ourselves on our feet financially and starting on the road to real wealth?
Well, there are some tricks you can use to follow through on your resolutions and make
some serious money for yourself.
Firstly don’t give yourself a big resolution like ‘getting on top of my finances’.
Do it step-by- step. As we show here, it’s best to set up some positive, small activities for the new year rather than come up with a big thing that you have to do now.
Give yourself some small but positive tasks like the ones here. For example, your first steps could be:
Once you’ve done some of the financial admin tasks above – and saved yourself hundreds of pounds over the year – set yourself a specific goal for your finances this year.
If you make a general pledge to spend less – without thinking about where you can cut back – it’s likely to be as successful as a general pledge to lose weight without a diet or exercise plan.
Set yourself a goal for saving over the year. In fact, do a budget (use one of the marvellous budget planners you can find online by searching ‘budget planner’) and that will show you how much you have to spend each month to keep yourself going.
Once you know how much you have left over to play with then you can give yourself a savings goal each month.
In fact, at that point you can bypass the need to make a resolution simply but setting up a standing order each month for the amount you’d like to save and letting the machine do it for you.
If you are automatically transferring a certain amount of money into savings and investments each month then you won’t even need to think about saving…the money will have gone out of your account so you will be forced to spend less!
When it comes to getting on and completing a New Year’s resolution, the easier the task the better!
Come up with one thing that you will change about your financial behaviour for the year and it will be easier to stick to it.
Maybe you will decide to stop taking taxis everywhere and switch at least one journey a week with a bus ride instead.
Or you will cut back on buying tea and cake every afternoon and just stick to tea (that helps with weight loss at the same time).
Or you resolve to read one financial article a week in order to get yourself more clued-up about money.
Speaking of getting more clued-up about money, a final tip is to get together with others who are trying to achieve the same kind of goal as you are.
Working with others towards a common end is a much better and more secure way of achieving your goals than struggling on your own.
So if you’re looking to get more fit in the New Year, find a running buddy or someone to go to the gym with every morning and you will be more likely to do it.
With money, sign up to money-minded communities and get free investing tips from newsletters like this one each month.
That way you will have others to talk to, bounce off and even compete with as you grow your wealth.
