“New Year, New Me” Budget Resolutions and How to Keep Them

“New Year, New Me” is a phrase we tend to hear repeatedly especially for the new year.

2019 is right around the corner. How many of you plan on really buckling down and achieving your new year resolution goals?

I personally know that keeping and sticking to a budget is not easy. I make it look easy but it is pure torture. There are so many times in my journey that I wanted to just spend my money but I knew in the long run that wasn’t the best choice.

What is your “New Year, New Me” Budget Resolution and how will you keep them?

The two BEST budget resolutions you should do and keep is to reduce your debt and to save money.

The best way to reduce debt is to stay out of debt.

New Year, New Me Budget Resolutions: Create a Budget

Creating a budget is pretty simple.

The first step is to assess your income. How much do you get paid? How much additional income can or do you bring into your household?

To create your New Year, New Me Budget Resolution, you HAVE to know how much income you have on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. I create my budget according to when I get paid.

The second step is looking at all of your expenses. This is your chance to honestly look at your expenses and determine what can be reduced or eliminated altogether.

For instance, I do not have cable but I do have the internet. I watch television with Netflix, Amazon Prime and free t.v. services such as Pluto T.V.

If I choose, I can subscribe to other t.v. provider such as NBC, CBS and ABC; however, there may be fees for those services.

You will have to and should take an inventory of what you ABSOLUTELY need versus what you can do without. Creating a budget includes eliminating unnecessary spending.

The third step is now sticking to your budget.  This will be the fundamental and necessary step of your New Year, New Me Budget Resolution.

New Year, New Me Budget Resolutions: Commit to Paying Off Debt

Now that you have your budget in place, you need to start looking at paying off debt. Whether you use the debt snowball method or the debt avalanche method, it doesn’t matter. Just start paying off the debt.

The best way for me to create a plan to pay off the debt was by using a standard excel spreadsheet, listing my debt from lowest to greatest (debt snowball) and paying more than the minimum on the lowest debt. See Paying Off Debt: Debt Snowball vs Debt Avalanche.

New Year, New Me Budget Resolutions: Commit to Savings

It took me about nine years to pay off ALL my debt totaling about $135,000. The last $36,000 took about 1.5 years. I threw EVERYTHING at my debt and kept myself on a very limited budget. It was well worth it to me because once I was out of debt I could move on to my savings phase. See Single Mom Mastersminds $700k Swing from Debt to Savings.

However, please note that during this time  (except for two years) I still saved for retirement and my daughter’s college education. I found things that weren’t that important to me to cut back or eliminate such as eating out and clothes shopping, etc. At one point I was spending $600 a month on eating out for me and my daughter (YIKES!)

In essence, I focused on three areas I wanted to attack simultaneously: paying off debt (I dedicated the most to this); saving for my daughter’s college education (I deposited all of my child support into this account in then double matched it once all my debt was paid off); and saving for retirement.

Once the debt was paid off I increased saving for my daughter’s college education and my retirement.

How to Stay Focused on your New Year, New Me Budget Resolutions

I am a very visual person. Placing my debt snow ball chart on my refrigerator helped me to have to face my debt head on on a daily basis. Every time I went to make me something to eat or get me something to drink, I saw my debt snowball spreadsheet. It was a constant reminder to me that I still had bills and debt that needed to be paid.

Friends of mine have Bible scriptures and other positive mantras in their homes. This may be something you may want to do in terms of staying focused with a New Year, New Me Budget Resolutions.

Here are some ideas for some mantras:

“By December 2019, I will have $5,000 of debt paid off.”

“By the end of the year, I will have $3,000 in my emergency fund.”

“I will not buy anything on my credit card this year.”

“I promise to start savings NOW for Christmas presents so I don’t have to use a credit card.”

Commit to living a different future starting now or January 2019. Buy some index cards and place them at different locations around your house as a constant reminder to keep your New Year, New Me Budget Resolution.