The team of Quick Money Recorder wishes you a very happy new year 2016 full of financial success! We are now well into January with most of us getting back into the usual work routine after sharing precious moments with friends and family. The new year can be the start of a change in the way we manage our money. We were very interested in a survey about Americans’New Year’s resolutions and thought we would share our modest opinion with you!

Money and budgeting resolutions are moderately popular

GoBankingRates conducted a survey over 5000 Americans to know what were the most popular resolutions in 2016. Respondents were given 6 choices among which 2 were related to personal finance. 2/3 of respondents chose resolutions presented in the list with “Spending less, save more” and “Pay Down debt” coming at the bottom (30.1% and 27.5% respectively). Millennials were the biggest segment to think about saving money while generation X was more like to choose debt reduction. Unsurprisingly, hedonist choices like “Living life to its fullest” came at the top.

Resolutions are good…if they lead to concrete results

Anyone has had the experience of taking a good resolution in January and not keeping it during the year. Change is difficult and success can only be based on a clear strategy. Most respondents chose only one resolution in the list which is wise, better focusing on one thing and succeed than fail at everything.  However, it is difficult to guess what people mean when they want to “Live life to its fullest”. Are they planning to enjoy each moment of their life and go on holidays more often? Or just appreciating small everyday gifts? Whatever the resolution is you need a plan and goals if you want these resolutions to mean something.

Whether you like it or not, you will need to consider your budget at one point

Whatever your project or your lifestyle is, you will still have to consider money at one point as almost nothing comes for free. Of course, you can still take the risk of living paycheck to paycheck but a bit of financial planning will give you control and peace of mind. It is very unlikely that you can enjoy life to its fullest if you have money troubles at the back of your head. You need to adapt your budget to your lifestyle and long term objectives. This will seem like a daunting task at first but remember you can look for help from a financial adviser and use Quick Money Recorder to track your spending and create a budget.

Again, we wish you a lot of happy and smooth budgeting in 2016!

We gave you some tips about creating your first budget in this blog post, hope it helps!