(Newswire.net — January 18, 2024) — You know that New Year’s resolutions are hard to stick with. Usually, you’re eager to commit to a resolution at the very beginning of the year, and as the weeks go by, your resolve starts to diminish. By the time that March or April rolls around, the goal is almost completely forgotten, and you end up telling yourself that you’ll try to pick it up again in the next year.
Maybe you need a little more motivation to stick to your resolutions! What better motivation is there than financial motivation? You’ll be more than willing to commit to your resolution when you know that it will save you lots of money.
Find out which common resolutions can help you save big.
Quitting Smoking
Do you smoke cigarettes? Then, your resolution for this year should be to finally break the habit. Quitting cigarettes isn’t just good for your health — it’s good for your bank account, too. According to Statista, the average cost for a pack of cigarettes in the United States is $9.00. It could cost more, depending on where you live. For instance, in New York City, you can expect to pay approximately $13.00 for a pack—this is partially due to the state’s high cigarette tax rate.
All of that money that you’re spending on cigarettes could stay right in your wallet. So, if you smoked a pack of cigarettes per day, and those packs were $9 each, you would spend over $3200 on your habit by the end of the year. And if you happened to be smoking a $13 pack per day, you would be spending over $4700 over the course of a year.
Quitting Drinking
A lot of people take part in Dry January at the beginning of the year. For the entire month of January, they do their best to abstain from alcohol and test their sobriety. Why not make your resolution an extension of this personal challenge? Why not abstain from alcohol for the rest of the year?
Much like quitting smoking, quitting drinking comes with a lot of health benefits that you may appreciate. You might find that you’re less bloated and uncomfortable. You have a better time getting to sleep and feel more rested in the mornings. You won’t spend your weekends trying to recover from brutal hangovers, where you can’t stand to look at direct sunlight and you can barely keep your breakfast down.
Plus, quitting drinking can save you lots of money. Say that a pint of draft beer costs you $5, and you tend to drink two when you go out to a bar. If you did this every single day, you would spend over $3500 in a year — not including tips. If you prefer to drink wine or cocktails, you might find yourself spending even more on your habit. By abstaining, you’ll stop yourself from spending thousands of dollars by the end of the year.
Brewing Your Own Coffee
Do you buy coffee every single day? Then, maybe your resolution for the year should be to start brewing it at home. For instance, maybe you’re a big fan of the coffee chain Starbucks. Depending on the Starbucks location, you can expect to pay about $3.00 per cup of drip coffee (size Tall). If you bought two tall coffees per day, you would spend over $2000 by the end of the year. If you decided to purchase more expensive drinks off the menu, like white chocolate mochas, you would be spending over $3000 by the end of the year.
Brewing your own coffee at home will save you much more money. With a budget-friendly coffeemaker and tins of coffee grounds, you can enjoy cups of piping hot coffee for a fraction of the price that you’d spend at your favorite chain.
What Should You Do with These Savings?
One of the best things that you can do with these savings is to build yourself an emergency fund. An emergency fund can help you withstand any small, urgent expense that comes your way, whether that happens to be a plumber’s bill or a spare tire.
Without an emergency fund, you might not have enough money on hand to cover these types of expenses. You could use one of your credit cards to handle the expense, or you could go to a website like CreditFresh and try to apply for a loan there. As long as you meet all of the eligibility requirements, you can submit your application for a fast loan online with a quick application process. Your application could get approved, giving you access to enough funds to pay off your emergency in a short amount of time. Then, all you’ll have to do is follow a loan repayment plan through a basic billing cycle.
Don’t just pick any old resolution to follow this year. Pick a resolution that will help you save a bunch of money from the get-go.