Financial resolutions are as easy to stick to as diet resolutions. For most people, it’s easy enough to establish fresh saving and spending goals for the upcoming year, yet difficult — if not impossible — to make it all the way to February with new habits intact.
In January, with your enthusiasm still fully intact, you loudly declare, “This is the year when I’m finally going to get out of debt!” But two weeks into the new year, you find that your plan is too tough. Too rigid. Not eating out for a year feels like an impossibility when your lifestyle has accustomed you to eating out every day.
This leads to a difficult struggle. You resist letting go, but no matter how hard you try, it’s almost impossible to follow through with your resolutions.
So, you slip a little.
Then, you slip a little more.
Eventually — and all too soon — you throw in the towel.
By the time you’re tearing February from the calendar and staring at March, you have almost no recollection of your “getting out of debt” goals, and certainly no strong habits to back them. You’re swimming in the midst of a debt-ridden sea, continuing down the same path of spending you were on the year before (and probably the year before that) while watching your credit card statements climb higher and higher.
June brings summer and complete indifference to your New Year’s goals.
By now, you feel bad. Awful. Your financial situation has only grown worse, rather than better.
You dread going to the mailbox, or answering your phone, because you know someone’s on the other end waiting for their payment. But, you lie to yourself like you do around this time every year: there’s no point in trying to change now. There’s only three months left until Christmas, and everyone knows it’s impossible to avoid over-spending in December.
Depressing, right? Well, it doesn’t have to be.
With another new year right around the corner, you can vow to make this one DIFFERENT — and, along with that, finally succeed at your resolutions by shifting your money mindset.
We let our thoughts about money control who we are, and allow our fears and insecurities to best us. Stress becomes second nature, which leads us to self-sabotage and reduces our goals to wishes.
You need a reason to maintain your motivation.
The statements below are basic financial truths. When spoken out loud, they will empower you to live a worry-reduced (because we know worry-free will never happen!) financial life.
Set your intention for success and adopt the MoneyNing Manifesto, then repeat it to yourself daily. By consciously trying to change your money mindset, you’ll have a greater shot at financial success this year than ever before.
The MoneyNing Manifesto for Financial Success
- I am not my finances. My finances are not me.
- I, not my impulses, am in control of my spending.
- I will look at the whole value of my purchase before I buy it.
- I will ask myself honestly what the benefit of my purchase is, and if I’m unable to find a legitimate benefit, I will not buy it.
- My finances are a means… not an end.
- I will take a few moments each day to assess my financial situation — before heading out the door.
- Homemade lunches will be my new best friend.
- Savings will be the second payment made on my list each month.
- I deserve to have my finances in order.
- My family deserves to live with less financial stress.
- Buying doesn’t make me happier; I make me happier.
- When I want to go out and impulse buy, I will choose a healthier outlet for my feelings.
- Every penny I earn is a penny I sweated for, and I will endeavor to treat them that way.
- More isn’t better.
- What I already have is more than enough.
- Food, clothing, and shelter are all I truly need to survive.
- Many people don’t have basic life essentials. I do.
- My family knows the value of a dollar, and what it’s really worth.
- Quality time with my family matters more than how much we spend, always.
- I will not worry about money.
- I am doing all I can to improve my financial situation.
- I will save smart.
- I will spend smarter.
Practice them all, or choose your favorites. The important thing is: use this MoneyNing Manifesto to change the way you think about money and spending. Empower yourself with financial confidence for the new year, and you’re bound to find financial success!
What do you think? Do you have anything you’d add to the MoneyNing Manifesto?
{ read the comments below or add one }
Just to be clear, when you say savings is the second thing you pay every month is there something else you put money to that is more important, or is it taxes?
The first is debt payments, which (unfortunately) taxes are a part of.
Solid list. I love the one that reminds us how our family deserves having less financial stress. So many people forget that freedom is the best purchase money can ever buy!
This is awesome. I think putting this down in writing really helps solidify one’s dedication. What would go further in that regard is to have your readers craft personal manifestos of their own. This affords a manner of catharsis, but also gives them the ownership of that manifesto – one that wasn’t pushed down on them, but that they came up with themselves.
Solid manifesto. It is so important for people to see savings as a monthly payment. That means it doesn’t get cut into as easily, and it’s always budgeted for.