5 Ways to Keep Your Financial New Years Resolutions
Tom Anderson , CONTRIBUTOR
Making a New Year’s resolution to improve your finances is easy. Keeping it is the hard part.
Only 8% of people successfully achieve their resolutions each year, according to research from psychologist John Norcross at the University of Scranton. Twenty-five percent of the resolution makers that Norcross studied dropped off after the first week. (Congrats if your resolution has lasted this long!)
I asked dozens of certified financial planners how they help their clients stay on track to reach their 2016 budgeting and spending goals. Here are some of their top tips:
Automate your resolutions
The key to resolution success is to automate as much as possible, says Stacy Francis, a financial planner in New York City. For example, set up automatic withdrawals from your checking account into a savings or retirement account. Francis recommends opening a savings account at a different institution than where you have your checking account to make it harder to dip into your savings for splurges. Phil DeGisi, Chief Marketing Officer at CommonBond, my employer, paid off more than $150,000 in student loans in 6 years. One of the ways he achieved that goal was by setting up automatic payments with his lenders.
