The first day of January means different things to different people. For some it is overcoming the night before, for others it is an opportunity for a fresh start but for those like myself it is the day where you start making your new year's resolution. Curious to see what others listed as their top 10 resolutions I turned to the internet, where else?

Here are the top 10 new year's resolutions for 2012:
1. Save money and pay any loans
2. Get rid of excess weight
3. Workout regularly
4. Stay happy
5. Plan everything
6. Find your love
7. Help others often
8. Spend more time with your loved ones
9. Stop smoking
10. Keep on learning

Surprisingly enough, many of my own personal resolutions were the same or very similar and taking a quick poll around the office uncovered pretty much the same story. So where do we begin?

Putting together a plan is probably the best start. As my mentor use to say, "failure to plan is a planning for failure." Now that we are in February it is interesting to see how many people are keeping up with their new year's resolutions. Let's look at the top goal "save money and pay any loans" and examine what needs to happen in order to achieve this goal. Unless you plan on coming into instant wealth (odds for Saturday Lotto are 8,145,060:1) then most of us will have to do it the old fashioned way, yes you guessed it budgeting!

What is a budget?

A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. Simple right? If this were the case then many of us seem to have plans to borrow and spend. So what went wrong? It is often easy for spending to get out of control if we don't understand our spending patterns and also have no immediate goals for your savings.

TAKE CONTROL

Start with working out where your money goes, keep track of everything you spend and also what you spend it on. This may be an eye opener for some and cause you to take the necessary steps to correct the habit. There will be some expenses such as food and bills that are a necessity, there will also be living expenses which you can improve on such as rent/mortgages. Can I get a better rate on my home loan or do I really need to live alone in a 2 bedroom rental? Once you work out your budget then you can put together a cash management strategy.

Income – Expenses = Savings

Building up savings is good but making the right decisions to apply these savings is just as important. We tend to focus on the short term goals and will apply 100% of the saving to this such as a new car or that holiday to Europe. Little thought is put towards or medium and long term goals such as saving a deposit for a home or making sure you have adequate funding for retirement. So how do we make sure we keep on track and set ourselves up to knock over those goals? Sometimes the most obvious answer is the one that is overlooked.

• Spend less than what you earn
• Drive down personal debt as quickly as possible
• Save regularly
• Invest in assets that will produce tax effective income and growth

At Announcer we help our clients by applying these very simply strategies and help keep our clients on track, after all they are YOUR goals and the only way to achieve them is by taking the first step in the right direction. It all starts with with change, if you keep doing things the way you have been doing them, then you will keep achieving the same result. Successful people often set goals for themselves and have a plan to achieve them. The plan might not be foolproof, but they adapt it as they go along to give themselves the best chance of succeeding.

Like having a personal fitness coach, a skilled adviser can work with you to create a plan, monitor it and help make it work for you. Let us help you plan for a successful future.

Speak to an Announcer representative today.

By Michael Sik