When you think about your personal finances in 2018 and realize how it all went without achieving your money goals, you might want to start early by setting your financial goals now to correct your mistakes.
To be honest, setting new year’s resolutions is very easy, but committing and following them through is always a different story. This is why it is important you set a realistic and achievable target for yourself.
Don’t set the bar too high to the extent that you’ll get discouraged and forget about the goals before the end of January 2019. Don’t ever make things difficult for yourself this year.
That being said, here are five tips to help you set reasonable new year’s resolutions about your personal finance in 2019.
1. Take savings more seriously
Budgeting helps you save more money
You have repeatedly heard about saving but you’ve never been really serious about it. Now is the time to make it a priority and look for ways to save more. Buy things that’ll save you money. Don’t be shy to negotiate the price of items before you pay. Look for shops with discounts and don’t forget to automate your monthly savings.
2. Get a side hustle
Not having a side hustle was probably one of the reasons you didn’t meet your financial goals last year. This year, getting a side business to give you extra income must be one of your top priorities.
3. Avoid debt
It’s 2019, try your best to avoid debt.
If you want to work and make money for yourself in 2019, just try your best to stay debt-free. Debt is a potential source of financial anxiety and it can prevent you from attaining your personal financial goals.
So, instead of borrowing, just avoid those expenses that may require you to borrow money. If you stick to your budget and save enough, you’ll buy those things you want without borrowing from anyone.
4. Have an emergency fund
If you have not been saving for a rainy day, having an emergency fund can be a good new year’s resolution. It’s 2019 and nobody will like to go through financial issues that’ll leave them broke. To avoid that experience, you need to start saving for unplanned and unexpected expenses now.
5. Build a budget
Forget it, you don’t need a spreadsheet to make a simple personal budget.
Having a budget helps you to coordinate your expenses in accordance with your income. Starting off the year with budgeting is very easy. Just having a list of expenses and incomes is enough to get you started. Believe me, you don’t need any fancy spreadsheet or graph and calculator to build a budget. The only hard part of it is sticking to the budget throughout the year. But I believe you can do it.
