The New Year and Financial Self-Improvement
Each year we are plagued with the idea of creating a resolution for the new year ahead. At my ripe 25 years of age, I think I have made maybe 10 total resolutions for each new year. These typically range from, ‘I want to lose 20 pounds this year,’ ‘I want to read 50 books,’ or ‘I want to run an 8k’. A lot of times it was, ‘to stop ending up in the ER’, which I am still terrible at achieving. But come this New Year, I have chosen to create a better relationship with my finances.
The Resolution Diet
Many people have started to opt out of New Year's resolutions. This is not surprising as a lot of our ideas for what we want our New Year to be are very surface-level. For example, wanting to lose weight or go on a diet. This is a popular resolution. Gym memberships see a huge spike each January, in fact, according to this article on realbuzz.com around 12% of gym memberships are made in January and most people quit within 24 weeks. This causes many people to feel like they failed. The reason why we aren't sticking to these types of resolutions is that we do not ask ourselves why we truly want to achieve that goal.
Why do you want to lose weight? Is it so you can be healthy and live a long life? Is it because others around you say you should? Journaling on goals like these is a great way to reach the true reason as to why you want it.
Finding My New Years Resolution
This year, I chose to not stick with my typical resolution. Which happens to be ‘stop going to the ER’. I haven't achieved it for 4 years so it might be time to let that go. This year, my resolution isn't so much one specific goal but a challenge. I have decided to do a low-buy challenge for 2022. If you have not heard of a low-buy challenge, it basically means you set up a set of rules for yourself to lessen how many things you purchase. A lot of people do no-buy challenges, where they do not buy anything non-essential for a certain amount of time. I know myself and know what my limits are, so I am going to do a low-buy challenge. You can find many, many different videos on these challenges on Youtube.com or Pinterest.com.
I stumbled across this idea while roaming the realm of Youtube watching various financial/minimalist videos. During the course of 2021, I have made a big shift in focus to my finances. I finally downloaded a budgeting app, I closed a credit card, I started to track my net worth, I unsubscribed from a bunch of email lists, and I started to really focus internally on why I felt I was struggling. At the end of 2020, I started a new job where I was getting paid $25,000 more than my last job. Somehow, I found that I was still struggling to feel confident in my bills and paying down debt. I would do the math over and over to know what I could afford but still found that my money seemed to be disappearing.
This brings me to…
Why I Chose This Challenge
I really want to change the way I think of New Year's resolutions. I have already made steps towards being better with money. I have listened to audiobooks, started podcasts, and started to really focus on what my financial goals are.
By the time I am 30:
- Out of debt
- 6-month emergency fund saved
- Be at least 1/4 of the way to millionaire status.
These are not easy goals. Especially as a young woman. Women are not taught finances the same way that men are. Our typical education on finances is to marry rich. Becoming financially literate is an incredible goal, but not always easy. I felt that I laid my foundation and so choosing the low-buy challenge for 2022 seemed like a good next step and fit.
My Low-Buy Rules
The low-buy rules can change for each person and can span any length of time that you see fit. My rules are going to span the course of the year, then at the end of the year, I will see how much money I saved.
I broke the rules into categories: beauty, books, clothes, home, grooming, subscriptions, and food.
Beauty:
For 2022, I will only buy beauty/makeup products that are replacements. I will be using the one in, one out method.
Home:
Similarly to beauty, I do not want to buy any new home decor and will only buy replacements for items I use regularly, i.e. candles, cleaning supplies, etc.
Grooming:
Hair: I only want to get it done up to 4 times max. My hair is pretty low-maintenance so I feel this is a pretty easy goal but one that will still be challenging if I randomly want to change it.
Manis/pedis: Only for special events, i.e. vacation or weddings.
Tanning: Use a self-tanner at home and only get a spray tan for special events.
Waxing: Take care of eyebrows at home.
Books:
This will definitely be the most difficult category for me. My rules are, to finish every book on my shelves so far that I have not read. Only then can I buy a new book. If I want to read a new book use my library card first, then consider buying. After I have read all the books on my shelves, it’ll be a “finish one = I can buy one’’ setup. No more buying six books each time I go to the bookstore.
Clothes:
Another hard category. For this, I want to only purchase with cash or debit. No more using Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, or any type of credit. Pick one shopping day per season. Also, I want to start buying more quality pieces.
Subscriptions:
Get rid of any subscriptions where the cost outweighs the usage. Also, no new subscriptions.
Restaurants:
Only go out to eat 2x a month.
Those are my set of rules. I also want to declutter each season and get rid of anything that I have not used in 6 months. This way I can reduce the amount of clutter that I have.
These rules may seem lenient to some but to others might seem impossible to do. I know myself and know my limits, so I believe this is a perfect balance to make this a good challenge for me.
What I Hope To Gain
I think any New Years' resolution should challenge you but also help you gain something. I think this resolution will be good for me for a myriad of reasons. Not only will it help me to save more money and start paying down my debts. I think it will also help me to get a handle on my impulsive personality and my impulse shopping. As an enneagram 7, I tend to be very impulsive and also have a hard time saying no. So, I think that doing this challenge will teach me those valuable life skills. Along with that, it will help me to understand why I feel the need to buy things or what my true relationship with money is.
So what kinds of resolutions are we doing this year? Ones that will give us surface-level achievement or ones that will truly help us improve ourselves long term?
