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Six ways to set financial resolutions that will actually stick<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the end of the year\u2014a time for reflection, relaxation and resolutions. Come 2026, maybe you want to learn a new skill, make the gym a regular part of your routine or spend more time with friends and family. But if you\u2019re planning to set a New Year\u2019s resolution that has to do with your wallet, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n
A whopping 97% of Americans age 25 and older with a household income under $100,000 said they have already set or are considering financial resolutions as part of their 2026 resolutions, according to a survey<\/a> of nearly 1,400 people conducted by Wells Fargo and marketing research firm Ipsos. The top resolutions are saving more money and spending less, but respondents are also resolving to improve their credit scores, pay off debt and start a new side hustle or income stream, reports Current<\/a>, a consumer fintech banking platform.<\/p>\n Setting a financial resolution is easy. It\u2019s sticking to it that\u2019s hard. But financial advisors say that there are several simple steps you can take now to help give your future self a leg up.<\/p>\n 1. Reflect on the last year<\/p>\n In order to make resolutions that you\u2019ll be able to put into practice, you need to start by reflecting on the last year, says Chelsea Ransom-Cooper, a certified financial planner at Zenith Wealth Partners.<\/p>\n Review your spending and transactions. You can either do this with a budgeting app or your mobile banking app, many of which offer money management tools to see what type of items and services get you to swipe your card most often. Note what your biggest spending categories are, and whether anything surprised you.<\/p>\n 2. Be realistic<\/p>\n There\u2019s no point identifying milestones you won\u2019t be able to hit, and doing so can be discouraging. For example, if you only saved $1,000 last year, you probably don\u2019t want to say that this year you\u2019re going to save $10,000.<\/p>\n A key part of this step is determining whether you have any significant changes to your income, Ransom-Cooper says. Perhaps you\u2019re expecting a raise at the end of the year or you\u2019re starting a new job with a higher salary after the holidays. If that\u2019s the case, it may make sense to give your savings goal a bump. But if you know you\u2019re also taking on new expenses, like higher rent or medical bills, you\u2019ll want to adjust for those changes as well.<\/p>\n You should also limit the number of goals you set and keep them simple, says Cristian Mundy, a certified financial planner at LifeLine Financial & Wealth Management Group. Don\u2019t write down 10 to 20 goals, but instead stick to three to five, then build from there if you need to add more goals later.<\/p>\n And don\u2019t overcomplicate things. Make sure these are behaviors you can keep up, such as setting aside $20 each week for a future car.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to make it a habit,\u201d Mundy says.<\/p>\n 3. Keep your goals top of mind<\/p>\n Committing your goals to memory may work for the first few weeks of the new year, but it\u2019s easy for them to go by the wayside if you don\u2019t push yourself to reflect on them regularly. Write your goals down somewhere you\u2019ll see them frequently, such as on a note on your desk or refrigerator.<\/p>\n Ransom-Cooper has her goals on her phone\u2019s homescreen so that every time she unlocks the phone, she sees them. She says she\u2019s even seen people write their goals on a sticky note and put them on their credit card so that every time they go to swipe their card, they’re reminded of the debt they\u2019re working to pay off.<\/p>\n \u201cLittle things like that can be great nudges to remind you \u2018Hey, before you do something that may not be aligned with those goals, here’s a good reminder of where we\u2019re trying to go this year,\u2019\u201d Ransom-Cooper adds.<\/p>\n 4. Avoid comparison<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard enough to stick to your own goals\u2014don\u2019t try to meet someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n That may seem like an obvious tip, but Ransom-Cooper says she\u2019s noticed more recently, with the rise of social media use, that clients can be tempted to choose goals just because it seems like everyone else is hitting that milestone, like buying a house.<\/p>\n \u201cPick goals that are important to you,\u201d she says. \u201cTry not to latch onto trends or other people\u2019s goals because they won\u2019t feel fulfilling.\u201d<\/p>\n 5. Automate<\/p>\n To reach goals, you have to make them part of your daily routine. Automating is a simple way to do that, Mundy says. For instance, if you\u2019re trying to save more money, set up an automatic transfer into your savings account every time your paycheck hits. If you have a 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement savings account, you\u2019re likely already making automatic contributions with a portion of your paycheck. A budgeting app can help you track your budget and spending patterns automatically, too.<\/p>\n Mundy says to think of this practice like working out: Once it becomes a regular part of your routine and you don\u2019t wrestle everyday with whether or not you\u2019re going to the gym, exercising becomes easier.<\/p>\n \u201cAnybody that wants to be financially stable, they have to put in place fundamental processes that allow them to be successful financially without them really thinking about it,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n 6. Be flexible<\/p>\n Be ready to adjust your goals if necessary. If you reach your goals, such as funding an emergency fund, sooner than expected, adjust your resolutions to make room for saving for the long term. And if the unexpected hits, like you get laid off from your job, revise your goals to make them attainable for the current moment and keep going.<\/p>\n You also want to be sure that you\u2019re allowing yourself to enjoy your life now, not just saving for the future.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to personal finance, it\u2019s all about having a good balance,\u201d Ransom-Cooper says. \u201cWe want to have a balance of making sure we\u2019re increasing towards our goals, but also allowing people to just enjoy some of their hard work, too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This story<\/a> was produced by Current<\/a> and reviewed and distributed by Stacker<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six ways to set financial resolutions that will actually stick It\u2019s the end of the year\u2014a time for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-177590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}