Its that time of year to start thinking about your New Year’s resolutions. I usually don’t subscribe to the whole New Year’s resolution hype but this year, with the added expenses of remodeling our lake house fixer upper, I have decided that this is the year to put our family on a budgetand figure out how to save money next year.
According to the New Years Resolution statistics published by The Static Brain Research Institute, the top New Years resolutions for last yearwere:
| Rank | Top 10 New Years resolutions for 2015 |
1 | Lose Weight |
2 | Getting Organized |
3 | Save Money |
4 | Enjoy Life to the Fullest |
5 | Staying Fit and Healthy |
6 | Learn Something Exciting |
7 | Quit Smoking |
8 | Help Others in Their Dreams |
9 | Fall in Love |
10 | Spend More Time with Family |
Do you see any of your goals on this list? Mine goal to save money was ranked #3 last year. Here are some other statistics about the type of resolutions people made last year:
| Type of Resolutions (Percent above 100% because of multiple resolutions) | Data |
| Self Improvement or education related resolutions | 47% |
| Weight related resolutions | 38% |
| Money related resolutions | 34% |
| Relationship related resolutions | 31% |
It looks like 34% of the people from this poll also wanted to make a conscious effort to save money.
| News Years Resolution Statistics | Data |
| Percent of Americans who usually make New Year’s Resolutions | 45% |
| Percent of Americans who infrequently make New Year’s Resolutions | 17% |
| Percent of Americans who absolutlely never make New Year’s Resolutions | 38% |
| Percent of people who are successful in achieving their resolution | 8% |
| Percent who have infrequent success | 49% |
| Percent who never succeed and fail on their resolution each year | 24% |
Now the moment of truth and the reason I don’t typically put a lot of weight (no pun intended) in New Year’s resolutions is because most of the time people don’t stick to them. Here are the stats:
| Length of Resolutions | Data |
| Resolution maintained through first week | 75% |
| Past two weeks | 71% |
| Past one month | 64% |
| Past six months | 46% |
Here is the thing…if you like making New Year’s resolutions then by all means do it. If you think it’s silly…well then don’t do it.LOL. I do think if you are going to makeone you should tell as many people as you can. This adds accountability which is super important. Also, make your goal achievable. Don’t set yourself up for failure.
With that being said…“I AM VOWING TO SAVE MONEY NEXT YEAR WITH 3 SIMPLE CHANGES”:
- I am going to quit buying “fizzies” at QuikTrip
- We are going to eat at home at least 5 nights/week
- I am switching all of my incandescent lightbulbs to LED
These small changes will make a huge impact on my bank account…maybe not immediately but definitely in the long run.
Change #1) No more store-bought fizzies.
This is my vice. I usually hit a “fizzy” machine a couple of times a day. When I add up what I spent in 2015 it amounts to over $1000! Are you kidding me? Not only is it a waste of money, but it’s not good for me anyway!
Change #2) Eat at home at least 5 times per week.
With 3 teenage boys, I am sure you can imagine that my food bills are extremely high. Unfortunately with our busy schedules it’s all too easy to go through a drive-thru or stop at a restaurant on our way home from a game. Let me just remind you…3 teenage boys. Umm…they don’t order off of the kid’s menu. They eat a ton of food! We never leave a drive-thru without spending $50.00 and double that (at least) for a restaurant.
Let’s do the math on that:
2 nights per week @ $50.00
+ 2 nights per week @ $100
+ $200 in groceries
= $500 per week or $2000 per month.
UGH!
By eating at home 5 nights per week, we will save:
1 night per week @ $50
+ 1 night per week @ $100
+ $200 in groceries*
= $350.00 per week or $1400.00 per month
That is a savings of $600 per month or $7200 per year!
*I didn’t change the grocery amount because I was buying food to make at home. We were wasting most of it because it would go bad before we would use it.
Change #3) Switch out all of my incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs.
A couple of months ago I received an Energy Usage Report in the mail with my electric bill. I have to be honest…I have my bill set up on autopay so I usually never open them but for some reason I was drawn to open it this time. I was shocked with what I read. It said that of all of my neighbors, I have (by far) the highest energy use. What?
I knew that I was always turning lights off that were left on but…seriously? It isn’t the furnace…we have an energy efficient wood-burning stove. It can’t be the AC because we never set it lower than 74 degrees.
It has to be the lights.
After googling energy-efficient lighting, I discovered LED light bulbs. LED bulbs save 80% more energy than incandescent bulbs.
I have known about them for some time but I thought they were all ugly and took forever to heat up. Nope. Ace Hardware has an entire line of LED bulbs that look just like the incandescent bulbs I replaced. Actually…I like them better than what I had. (See video above)
There you have it. I am not promising the world but I am promising to make simple changes to save money next year. Who is going to join me?
Each and everyone of you inspire me and I LOVE hearing your story. Feel free to share with me on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. And as always, be sure to follow Diva Of DIY on Pinterest and sign up for our FREE Newsletter to receive the latest projects delivered straight to your inbox!
This post was sponsored by Ace Hardware but the opinions were all mine.
