These Are 5 Quick Money Moves To Fund Your New Year Goals
You’ve got big plans for the new year. But even the best-laid plans require money. Everything from a gym membership to planning a comfortable retirement depends on saving with intention, spending wisely and making strategic money moves. The tricky part is knowing which moves will help fund your goals sooner rather than later — after all, you’ve got a new year to conquer.
To better understand the fastest money moves that can help you reach your goals before the ball drops on the next New Year’s Eve, MoneyLion turned to the professionals. By talking with financial experts, we learned what practical actions you can start now to set yourself up for a successful year and a stronger financial future.
1. Identify Your Goals
As an ambitious person, you likely want to achieve a lot in a short amount of time. You might be determined to make this the year you buy a new car, save for a European vacation and sock some serious money into your retirement accounts — all at once. With so many priorities competing for attention, your head may be spinning.
That’s why Matt Gellene, head of Specialized Consumer Client Solutions at Bank of America, advises slowing down and getting organized first.
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For Gellene, your first big move should be identifying your financial goals and creating a plan by asking yourself a few core questions:
What are my top financial priorities?
What is my ideal timeline?
Is this goal realistic right now?
“Starting with these questions will help you build an actionable plan to begin achieving these goals,” he said. “From there, consider utilizing a platform that provides digital self-service options or seek advice from a financial solutions advisor. They can offer personalized guidance, as well as access to educational tools and resources, to help you confidently manage your money and future investments.”
2. Establish Savings Buckets
After you’ve identified your top financial goals, Gellene encourages you to think of each one as a separate “bucket” for your savings. Each bucket represents a specific purpose, such as travel, a down payment or retirement.
You should also include an emergency fund among those buckets. An emergency fund creates a financial safety net, allowing you to pursue your other goals without derailing your progress when unexpected expenses come up.
“You can’t achieve every goal at once, but you can strategically plan for them,” Gellene said. “Organizing your goals into buckets creates structure and allows you to pursue your dreams while maintaining financial security.”
3. Create an Effective Budget
Balancing different financial and life goals means creating a budget that reflects real life. While figuring out what’s workable for you requires careful thought, there are some common baselines for success, according to Robert R. Johnson, a professor of finance at Creighton University’s Heider College of Business.
Johnson says budgeting is about more than tracking expenses. It means intentionally budgeting for savings first. He points to a well-known quote from Warren Buffett as a guiding principle: “Do not save what is left after spending; instead, spend what is left after saving.”
In other words, don’t think of the money you put into your goal buckets as an afterthought or leftover cash once the bills are paid.
“It should be a line item in your budget,” Johnson said. “You don’t build wealth by simply taking what you have left after expenses. We accomplish what we prioritize. Prioritize savings and invest those savings.”
4. Embrace Automation
Life gets busy — especially at the start of a new year. It’s easy to forget a monthly gym membership fee, even if you’re training for your first marathon. And while you may intend to prioritize investing, good intentions can stall when schedules get hectic.
Johnson says it’s time for a fresh New Year’s resolution: “People should try to automate as many financial decisions as they can.”
Automation makes funding your goals easier and more efficient. Most importantly, it helps establish consistent habits — paying bills on time and regularly contributing to savings and investment accounts.
“The biggest advantage of automatic plans is behavioral,” Johnson said. “If we’re enrolled in an automatic savings plan, inertia and human laziness tend to work in our favor. Once enrolled, people tend to stay enrolled.”
In other words, automation helps your money move toward your goals even when you're not thinking about it.
5. Make Extra Money Where You Can
Saving strategically is essential, but Austin Kilgore, an analyst with the Achieve Center for Consumer Insights, says earning extra income can accelerate your progress.
Before you protest that you don’t have time for a side hustle, relax. Even smaller, lower-effort options like selling unused items from around your home can generate cash for your savings buckets.
“This is a good time of year to clean out drawers, closets, basements, attics and garages,” Kilgore said. “Learn to sell online what you can.”
He also pointed to storage units as a common financial drain. Selling, donating or tossing their contents — and closing the unit — can save anywhere from $100 to $500 per month, funds you can redirect toward your goals.
The Bottom Line
Turning your New Year goals into reality requires intentional money management. Fortunately, the moves that can turn lines from your manifestation journal into accomplished goals — funding vacations, saving for a new car or investing for the first time — aren’t complicated. By identifying your goals, creating savings buckets, budgeting effectively and embracing automation, you can start funding your big ambitions right now.
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This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
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