Dominique Broadway shares three ways to stick with financial resolutions past the six-to-eight-week slump: write down goals and break them into smaller steps, find an accountability partner to check in regularly, and schedule money dates at least twice a month to review and adjust your plan.
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We are almost 2 weeks into the new year, and we know many people made resolutions about finances, and we want to help you stay on track. Financial expert Dominique Broadway is joining us this morning with some tips on how to make those financial resolutions last past January. And thank you so much for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
Resolutions, 6 to 8 weeks, that's normally what we hear about, you know, mid-February, and people are already done with that, but you've got 3 tricks. We're just gonna go through 3. You have a lot of them. I shared one, my personal one with you before that's not on this list, but 3 of them. What is the key to keeping this resolution?
So one of the keys to really keeping your resolutions is, you know, writing down your goals. And a lot of times we come up with these goals, they're kind of floating around in our mind, but we never actually take the time to write them down. So if we do write them down, we're actually able to have that larger goal but then create smaller action steps that you can do to reach those goals.
So the big goal, should that be a bigger picture item? Something that we, you know, I want to buy a shore house by in 15 years.
Yeah, I mean, it could be something large like that or something smaller like I want to start saving, right? So an action item may be open a savings account, right? The next action item may be start saving $50 a week or something of that nature. So you have those smaller things that you can do to kind of reach that larger goal.
Well, attainable. Okay, what about finding that friend that's going to hold you accountable?
Yeah, accountability partners are huge. And a lot of times people say, well, I don't want other people in my business. You know, people are kind of weird when it comes to talking about money, but if you can, you know, your significant other, your husband, your wife, your best friend, whoever, share with them your financial goals or whatever your goals are and just let them know, hey, can you check in with me every couple weeks to make sure that I'm reaching these goals? And when you know that someone's going to be checking in on you, you're definitely going to try your best to make sure you do.
Same thing works with health goals.
Exactly, like fitness goals.
Same thing, so you should apply that to finance. Alright, third tip for us.
The third tip is actually setting money dates. And I always try to make money fun. So I always tell people to sit down at least once or twice a month. I say at least twice a month, maybe on your payday, every Wednesday, or whatever it may be, and get a glass of wine, coffee, beer, whatever your thing is, and look over your financial situation. You know, see if you're making steps or progressing towards reaching those goals. So if you, you know, look at the end of January and say, hey, what I implemented in the beginning of January didn't work, then maybe I need to pivot so I can reach that goal instead of checking back in December and saying, "Oh no, I didn't reach all of my financial goals," which most people do.
I'm throwing one last one in there, just on the financial one, that you recommend: no spend days. I love that one. Just pick 2 days out of the week and don't spend any money.
Any money.
That's perfect.
Thank you so much.
Dominique Broadway, we appreciate it. Financial expert right here. If you'd like to learn more, just log on to our website foxbaltimore.com/morning on those tips. You can find them right there. Coming up, teachers in Maryland are getting creative in a new campaign. The message that they're spending, well, Governor-elect Larry Hogan on.
