Financial New Year’s Resolutions

Forget the cynicism of New Year’s resolutions for a minute. Even if you don’t keep all of them, you are still more likely to accomplish more of what you want than those who don’t bother to make any resolutions at all. So, with that in mind, consider what you’d like to accomplish in your financial life next year. 2010 is the start of a new year — and a new decade. You might as well put some serious thought into what you would like to accomplish, even if it’s as small as knocking $1,000 off your $5,000 worth of credit card debt.

My financial New Year’s resolutions

Every year I make resolutions. I try to keep them simple and doable. Things that I know will probably help me improve my overall financial situation in the long term. For 2010, I have three main personal finance goals:

1. Refi: This is a holdover from last year. I never refinanced the house like I had planned, so this is the very first thing on my list. I’ve been preparing a bit so that the refi is possible, so hopefully this will be accomplished.
2. Health Savings Account: I’m sick of waiting for the pipe dream of actual health care reform. And I’m even sicker of the premiums I pay. Even paying out of pocket for everything (my family’s health expenses are fairly low), I could save money with a high deductible plan with a small premium. And that mean’s that I’ll want a Health Savings Account to go with my shiny new health care plan.
3. Retirement account for my man: My husband has been working on his Ph.D., so the only retirement account we have is my Roth IRA. That’s going to change this year. Even if my man doesn’t get a job with retirement benefits after he completes his education, we can still fund another retirement account. And we will.

Do you have any financial New Year’s resolutions? What are they?

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