Increase Savings and Reduce Expenses in 2011

What are your New Year’s financial resolutions?  Is it to save more?  Reduce your expenses?  We all have good intentions in January, but what happens to them in the coming months?

If your resolution is to save more, start by saving a small amount each week.  The amount should be something you think you can easily do without a problem.  If you are thinking that there is no money left over after you pay your bills to do this, you are thinking about this backwards.  Savings needs to be your first priority and not your last.  Take the amount you can afford to save weekly and take it off the top, before you pay your bills.  This way, you will ensure that this will happen.  Lots of people don’t keep their resolutions because they goals are too much for them.

If you have never succeeded in making this resolution in the past, start small.  By small I mean start with $5 per week.  If you can do this easily, then increase the amount for next month.  Then increase again and again until you get to an amount that you were originally thinking you wanted to save in the past.  This is much easier for you to accomplish with baby steps than if you said I want to save $100 a week and then fail to do so.  You are building your success with small steps and sticking with your resolution.

To reduce your expenses, think baby steps again.  Look at one category of spending and figure out a way to reduce that category by 10%.  Once that is done, go on to the next.

Resolutions / goals are something that you can do any day of the year. There is no need to only do them in January of each year.  Remember, anything that you want to accomplish will take effort on your part.