No resolutions just a plan to be money wise

Every year I set myself new years resolutions,  to manage my time better, learn a new craft or take up a new hobby, to lose weight or to get fit and exercise more, and of course each year I fail miserably.

With most of us who set these goals we put too much pressure on ourselves which of course sets us up for a fall ending with the feeling of failure.  According to research compiled at the end of last year

only around 46% of resolutions made over the new year made it past 6 months?   The top 10 resolutions for last year being:

One of the reasons I didn’t set myself any this year is that I hate that end of January feeling of not continuing or giving up. I’m not alone though and it would seem that Fail Friday is actually a real thing according to the Telegraph – the third Friday in January is the day when our collective will-power is most likely to be broken.

With healthy eating or diets I feel the need to clear all the rubbish from the cupboards first and of course I therefore end up eating it as I hate waste, eating your body weight in cheese and biscuits left over from Christmas in the lead up to a diet is not big nor clever as I always discover when I’m left craving it at the end of week one.

New crafts or hobbies….I still actually want to do this and last year started learning to Knit and Crochet but I’ll do these at my own time with no pressure of a time-scale to hinder me.  When I’ve time I’ll watch some YouTube videos and work out how to do more than one row of Crochet or a few rows of Knitting, dolls scarfs are currently being made as it’s all I can do.

One thing I have planned to do this year is to be more careful with money, being self-employed is always tricky as you can’t always guarantee the money will be regular and keep coming in.  Rainy days happen, sadly more than I would like and I’d like a mini back up should things go pear shaped. 

Wouldn’t we all love one of these?

You’ve probably seen the money chart plans which did the rounds on social media around the beginning of the new year, there were a few variations from putting 1p away in a jar and doubling that amount daily so 1p on day 1, 2p on day 2, 3p on day 3 etc. to adding a set amount each week and doubling as the weeks pass.

Now I know I’d be rubbish at that sort of thing so I’ve just set up a direct debit each month which puts £50 a month into my savings account and £20 each month into the kids.  It isn’t a huge amount but will be enough to help with a rainy day if needed, will pay for a holiday next year or can be used to pay for Christmas.  If untouched it will be £600 by December in my savings and an extra £240 into each of the children’s accounts.

It’s an amount I can afford currently but if I needed to I could reduce the amount each month.  I know that putting into my savings account will work better for me as if I put in a jar at home I would raid it when I needed to pop to the local shop which doesn’t take card payments, and although it would be £5 or £10 here and there it wouldn’t be replaced.

If saving money, earning cash back on purchases or budgeting were amongst your resolutions this year then you may find the TSB new year money resolutions page helpful. 

“This is a collaborative post”

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