Personal Finance News
WalletHub Survey Highlights Top Financial New Year’s Resolutions
As the end of the year nears, the personal finance site WalletHub has released a new survey looking at some of the money resolutions consumers have for 2025.
About the survey results:
According to WalletHub’s survey, 52% of consumers say they’re likely to make financial resolutions for the new year (which was second behind health resolutions at 71%). Of those who do plan to make money resolutions, the top goal was “save more” at 41% followed by “spend less” at 21%. One in five also resolve to make more money in the new year while 11% intend to pay off debt.
Looking to the past, asked what advice they’d give to their younger selves, those surveyed had similar priorities. Nearly half (49%) said they’d advise their past self to save more. This easily topped other popular responses including “spend less” (18%) and “make more money” (16%). Meanwhile, 6% said they’d suggest improving financial literacy, 5% said “improve your budget,” and another 5% stated they’d want to tell themselves to pay off debt.
Despite many respondents saying they plan to make resolutions, 62% agreed that New Years resolutions in general add too much pressure. Moreover, 69% of people anticipate that it will be more difficult to keep their 2025 resolution than it was to stick to this year’s. Meanwhile, 28% admit they don’t even remember what their 2024 resolution was.
Beyond resolutions, WalletHub also asked consumers about other money aspects of 2025. Heading into the new year, 56% of respondents said that inflation is their biggest financial concern. Nevertheless, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed expect 2025 to be better for their wallets than 2024.
My thoughts:
As this survey shows, many Americans truly do want to make positive financial changes in the new year. In turn, setting a “resolution” may seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, setting out to simply “save more” or “spend less” isn’t enough. Instead, those who are serious about improving their finances need to create more specific and measurable goals for themselves. For example, they may strive to set a certain amount of money aside each month and plan to achieve this goal by cutting unneeded subscriptions, dining out only a select number of times per month, etc.
With that in mind, hopefully those looking to better their money in 2025 can turn their “resolutions” into actual, realistic goals before the new year arrives. Then again, it’s important to keep in mind that change can begin at any time — so don’t be discouraged if you don’t make the arbitrary New Year’s deadline.