Make a plan to stick to your resolutions
Another New Year. Another resolution. What should it be this time? I went on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour last week to discuss this very question. The other guest on the programme said that she didn’t fancy resolutions much. She didn’t like the “oppressive” notions of “obligation and duty” that they come wrapped in.
I’m not so sure. I rather think we could all do with a little more in the way of notions of obligations and duty. That’s particularly the case when it comes to our finances – which is why, when the other guest suggested everyone resolve to eat better chocolate in 2012, I suggested we all make a proper financial life plan instead.
“Save more” is generally one of the top resolutions made in Britain. But it is a pretty useless one: if you don’t add a proper target to your resolution, it will fall apart long before the sales are over. It is too vague to work. “Save £200 a month until I have three months’ worth of income sitting in a cash account” is better.
But taking it further and making a financial life plan with a series of targets is the best way to go. Most of us neglect the management of our money. We get it, we spend it, we save it and we invest it. But we don’t do so to a set plan. We don’t sit down, decide realistically where we want (or need) to be financially and then work to get there. The results are obvious.
So he