Tips For Keeping Your Financial Resolutions

How to Maintain Your Financial Goals

In 2013, Fidelity carried out a study that asked consumers what they would be making their New Year resolutions about. More than half of those surveyed stated that their resolutions would be financial, saying that they would rather be financially fit than physically fit. The FINRA National Financial Capability study highlighted the need for people to further focus on their finances, discovering that ā€˜in addition to living beyond their means, more than one-tired of consumers with credit cards paid only the minimum on their credit cards during some months in the last year.ā€™

The top three New Year resolutions havenā€™t changed in the past four years, 54% of you aim to save more money, 24% of you aim to pay down debt and 19% of your aim to spend less. With these three goals in mind, the following tips should help to stick to your goals and make lifelong changes in 2014.

Find Ways To Reward Yourself

Itā€™s important to reward yourself when you accomplish a difficult task in order to keep motivated. For example you could set up a low-cost savings account and reared yourself by saving pennies or pounds each time you do something you dislike or find difficult. This gives you something to look forward to at the end of the year as well as pushes you to keep up your savings goal.

Track Your Expenses

Itā€™s important to track your expenses and earnings in order to determine exactly how much you can or need to save each month to achieve your goal. You need to be clear on how much money you need each month to support your current lifestyle, try not to be too hard on yourself and over save as it will only lead to you breaking into the account sooner than necessary. Donā€™t get disheartened if itā€™s only a little each month either, having Ā£50 to save each month for a year is better than having Ā£500 to save for two months before you realise you get cope with that much of a loss.

Increase Your Income

Your income is the most relied on source of money and whilst it may seem sweeping to assume you can easily increase it, there are certain things you can do at work to help introduce the suggestion. The key here is to become indispensable at work – you need to be needed. Ways to achieve this involve getting noticed, for example by volunteering to lead a project or to speak at an event, keeping your expertise up to scratch, for example by reading up on relevant blogs and industry journals, and strengthening your network, for example by keeping in touch with your work colleagues in and outside the office.

Schedule Weekly ā€˜Money Datesā€™

Schedule in a one hour weekly slot where you sit down and review your budget, expenses and goals. Spend this hour reviewing the details of your goals, your aims and making any changes and amendments that are required. Be open about this process, talk about it to your friends and family to solidify your aims. One this weekly date becomes routine itā€™ll be easier to stick to and make you more likely to achieve your New Year resolution.

Buddy Up

Find someone else in your life that is trying to achieve the same New Year resolution as you and partner up with them. Having an accountability partner is guaranteed to increase productivity and keep you motivated to stay on financial track. You can encourage each other with weekly catch-ups and listen to each others advice to help achieve your goals.

Automate Everything

One of the most common reasons for failing to achieve New Year resolutions is human error. We are naturally forgetful, often demotivated and sometimes give in too easily. A great way of overcoming this failing is letting technology take over for you. Nowadays you can automate everything and the more you do the less you have to worry about remembering and the less you have to overthink your New Year goals. Automate your payments, bills, savings, investments, even your charity donations, and take the weight off your shoulders.

Visualise Your Resolution

Creating a visual board for your financial goals is a creative and exciting way of keeping motivated. It could be made up of things youā€™d like to achieve such as holiday plans, debt free status and other targets that keep you going. Friends and family could contribute to the board and help keep it updated to show you that you have support in achieving your goals.

Associating Money With Happiness

The more you associate money with crisis the easier it is to get bogged down and demotivated. Worrying yourself sick over your financial goals is not beneficial to your health or your budget. As long as you focus on the fun things that you will achieve with your goals, whether it is a holiday abroad or debt free status, you should be able to complete those all important financial resolutions.

Note: To know more about planning your finances, see our page about Financial Planning.

For more information about how Expert Wealth Management can help you maintain your financial performance with a long-term sustainable plan, get in touch today by callingĀ 01993 772467 or by contacting us online.

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