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5 Ways to Financially Prepare for the New Year
What’s up, peeps?!
The new year is almost here – are you pumped?
With a new year brings a fresh start and new goals – and for most folks, that includes financial goals. So to help you reach those goals, Personal Capital and I have teamed up to give you a few tips to help you prepare to kick some financial butt in the new year!
1. Perform a Personal Audit
One of the first things you want to do to prepare for the new year financially is to look back on the year and look at what you spent. Did you do a lot of frivolous spending this year? Wound up going to the doctor more than expected? Sit down and look at everything you spent, all of your income, and what is left after the dust has settled. All of these things matter, because knowing and understanding your expenses and spending habits will help you develop a strategy to go into the new year the right way!
2. Set Goals
What’s a plan without a goal, right? Do you want to buy a house or car next year? Want to pay off a large debt? Just want to save more money? Figuring out your “Why” is the key to success! Knowing that you have something tangible to work towards will give you the motivation to keep going when times get hard or you are tempted to spend.
3. Get Ready for Tax Season
Are you a procrastinator when tax time rolls around? Why not take your last few remaining days in the new year to get ready! If you aren’t one that does your taxes yourself, take this time to get in touch with a tax professional so you can talk to them about handling things for you. You don’t want to try and call them while everyone else is scrambling to get their taxes done – the earlier, the better!
4. Create A Budget
Most people don’t like budgets, but they can be extremely helpful! Once you know your spending habits and what your expenses will be, take that information and create a budget for yourself and your family. Once you have proper guidelines set in place, saving won’t seem so overwhelming!
5. Don’t Give Up!
Finally, don’t give up! Granted, things may get hard and you may feel as if you aren’t making any progress, but remember – things like this take time and some progress is better than none! Find people who are trying to do the same thing and lean on them for support, read books, listen to podcasts – do whatever you have to do that helps you feel empowered and inspired!
I hope these five tips will help you feel inspired and ready to take the new year on by storm! What are some of your financial goals? Tell me about them in the comments! And be sure to check out Personal Capital’s blog for tips and guidance. They also have personal finance software, where you can set up your new year budget, track your progress, and even find out your net worth! And if that wasn’t enough, the software is FREE!
6 thoughts on “5 Ways to Financially Prepare for the New Year”
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I like the idea of performing a personal (and financial) audit
Great reminders! Thanks for the encouragement to stay the course even when budgets seem so unfriendly. Haha!
I tend to do clean up our paperwork and get ready for the new year. I need to do with this with our finances as well.
Some great tips! Always good to have a game plan before the New Year.
http://www.thedivinepresence.wordpress.com
Personal audit is a great idea. I try to prepare my paperwork for taxes at year end but it usually takes me longer than I'd like.
We are working to write our goals and take tangible steps to making this a successful year!