It’s a new year, and that means you’ve made some resolutions, maybe this year it’s a financial resolution again. But how can we ensure we stick to our resolution this time?
1. Put Your Savings Goal On Auto-Pilot
If you know you need to save $500 a month (or whatever) to meet your savings goals for this year, the best way to make sure it happens is to have your bank set an automatic transfer at the beginning of the month (or right out of your paycheck). This way you have no choice but to put that money aside, and the rest of your expenses work around it.
2. Evaluate Everything
One of the easiest ways to “give yourself a raise” is to reevaluate all of your services. Take a look at your cable plan, can you get a cheaper deal? Do you need your current cell phone plan or can you get away with a cheaper one? Have you priced out car insurance lately? Between all of these you can save a couple hundred dollars a month, making that savings or debt goal much easier to achieve.
3. Make Your Progress Public
If you have a really ambitious goal, why not get others to help you with it? Peer pressure is one of the best ways to ensure you don’t slack on your goal, so start a blog about paying off your debt, or Facebook about your savings goal. Having others hold you accountable will do wonders (and quite a few people have actually made careers out of this!).
4. Make a Resolution Every Month
With BudgetSimple, each month requires you to take a look at your budget and see what worked, and what didn’t. Don’t just think about your finances at the New Year, see how you are doing each month, and if you are on track, why not make another resolution? One month you can resolve to spend less on groceries, another month you resolve to set aside money for retirement.
5. Break Your Resolution Into Milestones
Let’s say your New Years Resolution is to save $10,000 this year. That can be quite a daunting number. But if we change this resolution to $192.30 per week, that may seem more doable. Each time you achieve your milestone, say $2500 by April, you should reward yourself. Acknowledge you’ve met your goal and go out to eat, or if you haven’t met your goal, reevaluate what it will take to make it, does your goal need to be less ambitious, or can you buckle down and make it happen?
What’s your financial New Years Resolution, and how can we help you achieve it? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook!
