Changes
How 30-day commitments can transform your finances (and your life)
Note: Our habits affect our finances. That’s why I think the following post is relevant to a financial newsletter, even if it isn’t specifically about finances. You can still apply this to how you manage your money—and the decisions you make. And yes, I promise to get more into the ins and outs of bank accounts, investing, and winning the lottery (maybe) in future issues.
It’s late January, which means this is a perfect time to talk about why I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions.
Ha! She’s a day late and a dollar short is the sort of thing you might be thinking right now (especially if you’re a person in my mother’s generation, because that’s the sort of thing she would say). But no, there’s method to my madness (also the sort of thing she would say—it might be her voice I’m constantly hearing in my head).
I purposely waited until the end of January to share this.
At this point in the year (day 26), how many of us are keeping up on our resolutions? Yeah, one or two of you keeners might be, but the rest of us know what’s up.
The best part about making a resolution is quitting it.
That’s because most resolutions are unsustainable. The ones that tend to be successful are so generic they can’t really be effectively evaluated.
Step 1: Resolve to drink less in 2023.
Step 2: Don’t drink on January 2, 3, 4, 5
Step 3: Toast to your success (last year, you drank on Jan 2 AND Jan 3) and look forward to crushing it again in 2024. #winning
The problem with changing any ingrained habit for the long-term is that it’s super hard to envision committing to that change for a year or longer.
On day 1, it’s easy. You’re giddy with the joy of having committed to something and invigorated by the newness of it all, like when you go on a first date with someone. But by day 15 that glow has worn off and it’s become a slog (like some relationships). You’re not seeing the results you want, it’s harder than you expected, and you’ve already forgotten why you’re doing it.
That’s why in fall 2022, I started embracing monthly commitments. These are month-long trial runs of habits (financial and otherwise) that I want to eliminate, replace, adapt or adopt.
Why it works
When we change habits, we tend to look either too far into the future (who wants to think about doing something forever?) or too short (it’s rare to know in a week if a habit is really working for you).
Either way, we quit before we even give ourselves a chance to succeed.
Month long commitments are like a mid-distance race. Short enough to see the finish line and keep moving toward, it but long enough to gather meaningful information about whether we want to continue.
Let’s say your change involves saving more money. At the end of one week, you might notice a small increase in savings but it likely won’t be enough to overcome the desire to spend the next time you see a shirt you really want. If you vow to save for a year, you might be tempted to spend from your savings, thinking you can make that money up later in the year.
A month is also long enough that you can probably form a habit from it, or at least break a previous mindless habit (this was the goal of my not drinking for the month of January and not buying clothes spontaneously, both of which also have financial implications).
If the habit hasn’t worked for you by the end of the month, drop it like it’s hot. But at least you’ve given it enough time to sort out whether it actually works for you, based on information. Not based on emotion.
Some people say it takes a month to build new neural pathways and make effective changes, or 21 days of doing something every day to create a new habit. I’m not sure of the research behind all of it, I just know that 30 days is enough time to gather information without being so long you just up and quit out of despair.
Here’s how I do it.
On the last day of the month, I think of 1-3 habits I’d like to change. I commit to them for the next month and write them down so I can look at them. Sometimes I write out why I’m making this commitment, so I have additional motivation to keep going when it’s the 15th and I just want to give up. At the end of the month, I evaluate whether the habit worked for me, why it did or didn’t, and whether I would like to continue with it, adjust it slightly, or drop it. Then I come up with 1-3 new habits to take on the following month.
Doing it this way gives you 12 opportunities to make changes in your life, without worrying whether or not you can keep them up forever. It’s much less daunting. Also, by starting at the beginning of each month, you never have to waste energy tracking how far along you are. You just look at the calendar.
And, if you have a large project (like decluttering your home), you can break it down into 30-day stretches, to make it easier to tackle.
At the end of 30 days, even if you decide the habit doesn’t work for you, you can celebrate that you committed to trying something new.
Since I started doing this, here are some of the habits (financial and otherwise) that I’ve changed:
Putting money regularly into a high-interest savings account
Investing money regularly (more on this in the future)
Checking my bank accounts daily
Not drinking for a month (which has saved me a ton of money, and given me the opportunity to reflect on a habit that had become somewhat mindless)
Not spontaneously buying new clothes, shoes, or accessories (this has lasted two months and feels great except I’m now deeply aggravated by how much marketing is put in front of me when I’m simply trying to mind everyone else’s business on Facebook)
Cleaning up my kitchen every night before bed (this has made a world of difference to my mindset every morning)
Decluttering rooms in my house (also helps me financially because the more I get rid of, the less I want to buy)
Cooking more meals, rather than ordering
Since it’s almost the end of the month, take some time to think about habits you might like to change and make a commitment to do it. Even better, you only have to keep it up for 28 days in February!
For the two of you who can’t get enough of my writing (who can?) I’ve started a new newsletter called Aging Gracelessly. It’s my thoughts, opinions, ramblings and cultural takedowns. Feel free to check it out here and subscribe if you’d like to be mildly entertained or mildly annoyed. You can read the first post, where I ask the age-old question “How did you get your eyeliner so straight while you were breastfeeding?” here (fair warning, I do use colourful language—I’m not against dropping an f-bomb).
Cheers to your financial success,
Heidi