Make a plan to get your money resolutions back on track
We’re three months into 2021. Let’s check on those financial New Year’s resolutions. (Remember those?) Quite possibly, they’ve already gone awry.
Maybe you planned to build a $1,000 emergency fund, but the balance is still zero. Or perhaps you swore off takeout, yet you’re scraping the last bite of chow mein from a paper container as you read this.
Don’t beat yourself up. You don’t have to give up on your goal because of a setback.
“There’s nothing magical about New Year’s, and you don’t have to wait until 2022 to try again,” says Amy Hubble, a certified financial planner and founder of Radix Financial LLC in Oklahoma City.
Step back and examine why you couldn’t stick to your resolution in the first place. Possible culprits: The goal was vague, too ambitious or lacked a plan. For example, say your resolution was to save money. That didn’t address how much to save, how to save it and so on. A more effective resolution might have been to put $100 from each paycheck into a savings account.
Hubble recommends using the “SMART” goals framework to set resolutions. That stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely, she says. Was your goal missing any of these elements? If so, there’s a good chance you can salvage it by restarting with this approach.
But sometimes resolutions are beyond rescuing. If your financial situation has changed since you set it – say you lost your job or unexpectedly faced a major home repair – it’s perfectly acceptable to tweak it or walk away.
“Financial planning is a process, not an event,” says Trent Porter, a certified financial planner , life coach and founder of Priority Financial Partners in Durango, Colorado. “Life’s going to change, and your goals and how you get there are going to need to adapt.”
Ready to give your resolution another go? Ask yourself why you’ve chosen this goal and what exactly you hope to accomplish.
“Maybe it’s less stress on your marriage or partnership, maybe it’s the ability to go on vacation once the world opens up again, and maybe it’s the ability to retire one year earlier,” Hubble says.
Having a personal reason in mind can inspire you to see it through.