3 Tricks to Making (and Keeping) a New Year’s Resolution

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resolutionAccording to a study by Fidelity Investments, 35% of respondents usually consider New Year’s financial resolutions, but the lousy economy has grown that number by as much as 23%. What specific financial resolutions do these include?

• 51% want to save more money
• 30% want to spend less money
• 14% want to make or stick to a budget

But financial resolutions are harder to stick to than others, according to Fidelity. On average, people stay the course for about three months.

To stretch those three months to twelve, try these three tricks:

Assign Short-Term Deadlines

Example: “I will pay off X dollars of debt every month.”

Be a Geek

Example: Make graphs to track your progress; we love nothing better than watching the beautiful upward curve of our savings.

Tell People

Email your progress to a group of friends—or, post it on Twitter—to let peer pressure do its magic. With LearnVest’s Financial Boot Camp, you can meet your goals with the rest of the community. (It’s not too late to join. Sign up here.)

Do these check-ins regularly. Make a weekly or monthly note in your calendar and stick to it.

Tell us: What are your financial resolutions and how are you going to achieve them?

  • http://girlswithcomics.wordpress.com Hannah

    By the end of 2010, I will be out of credit card debt, have increased my credit score by 100 points (670 now), and increase my savings by tenfold.

    I’m already well on my way to achieving this goal; I’ve been enrolled in the Bootcamp since the start of the month, and have also joined CreditKarma. I’ve made my goals, my budgets, and have made real, realistic vows to pack up my savings account, pay down my debt and increase my credit scores. I have the tools. LearnVest and CreditKarma have been giving honest, real information.

    Grad school is going to be expensive, and I’m so excited to know that my financial situation is going to be solid. I WILL DO THIS!

    • The LearnVest Staff

      Hannah,

      Thanks so much for sharing your resolutions with us! We’re lucky to have you as part of our Bootcamp community, and we’re excited to work with you in the future. If you have any ideas (questions you have about your finances that you’d like to see answered, additional goals you’d like to share, ANYTHING), we’re here and we’re listening. Please keep commenting on the blog–and we’ll keep answering! Also, feel free to shoot us an email at feedback@learnvest.com to share your thoughts, suggestions, and anything else. We’re pretty accessible; you can also tweet any finance questions to @asklearnvest and we’ll reply to you with answers there, too. :-)