How to Achieve Your Financial New Year’s Resolutions

As the end of the year approaches, it’s time to start thinking about New Year’s resolutions and how you will improve your finances in 2016.

Some people have problems with setting and keeping financial New Year’s resolutions and goals for the year. At the beginning of the year, everyone’s motivation is often high as they are fueling up to work toward their financial goals.

Life happens though. Unexpected events occur that can throw you off from your original plan or discourage you. Throughout the halfway mark in the year, you may be ready to ditch your financial goals and resolutions.

Here are a few things you can do now in order to keep powering through the entire year and staying focused on achieving your goals.

Set SMART Goals

If you find that you have vague goals like ‘pay off debt’ or ‘save more money’, you’ll find that you won’t get far with these goals if you don’t get specific. SMART goals stands for: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-sensitive.

When setting your financial goals, it’s important to determine how you will do it, what you will do each month to ensure you get there, and when you anticipate you will reach your goal.

Consider your income and personal situation in order to ensure that the goal is realistic. For example, if you and your spouse want to save up $10,000 to go toward a down payment for a house, you’ll need to put up a minimum of $833.33 together each month. You might want to cut some of your expenses in order to help you meet those requirements throughout the year which brings me to the next point.

Create a New Realistic Budget that Favors Your Goals

Once you’ve set your SMART goals, it will be time to rework your budget categories and spending limitations so you can meet them. Assess what you spent too much money on last year and what you can do without so you’ll know which expenses to cut.

Consider whether or not you will pursue earning extra money throughout the year and how much you need to live comfortably each month.

It’s best to add your financial goals as budget categories to help you stay on track each month so there should be a category for saving, debt payments, investing etc.

Get an Accountability Partner

When you reach that point in the year where you start feeling like you want to 86 your goals, that will just be your mind’s way of telling you that you need some support and a motivational boost to keep going.
Establishing an accountability partner can help you stay motivated even before you reach that point in your journey.

Find a friend, family member, or associate who has similar financial goals as you do for the year and see if they’d like to partner up so you can encourage each other to reach your goals together.

It’s important to surround yourself with people who understand your financial goals, and fully support you.

You can check in with your accountability partner to make sure you are staying on track, vent with them, bounce ideas off them, and build a genuine friendships and partnership together throughout the year.

Accountability is important when it comes to reaching your goals and having someone to hold you accountable just could make the difference between success and failure.

Did you set financial goals yet for next year? What are some resolutions you really want to keep and achieve over the next 12 months?