Financial Discipline Is an Easy Resolution to Make, but a Hard One to Keep

As I wrote last year, I had become obsessed with the idea of budgeting and was given the advice to step back and relax. But I have since found that relaxation isn’t enough. I need to think more broadly. Only then will I start to make smarter individual spending and saving choices.

So my resolution for 2026 is to acquire that elusive, but essential, element of healthy financial behavior: discipline.

Financial discipline, at least for me, is the ability to align my spending, saving and investment decisions with my long-term goals. And it has more to do with attitude than it does with budgeting dollars and cents.

Know your ‘why’

It’s an easy resolution to make but a hard one to keep.

The first step in finding this discipline, says Stephanie Genkin, a certified financial planner, financial therapist and founder of My Financial Planner in Brooklyn, N.Y., is identifying your “why.” That is, why do you save? Individual whys may vary, she says, but “people who are attached to their goals tend to succeed.”

Knowing the reason you’re saving or scrimping can be a motivator. Rather than relying on the fleeting January momentum, you can work toward a goal that feels lasting. One of my friends says she is working to save enough to take a sabbatical from work and “buy back her time.” Another friend is focused on paying off her mortgage. My sister’s “why” is travel. She doesn’t mind trimming expenses and other spending in order to afford to go on trips. Last year, she visited Budapest, Vienna and Paris.

As for me, I want to feel financially secure in an uncertain era and industry. That reasoning is informed by my past experiences, including having to dip into my emergency fund to cover rent before I started working at the Journal. I want to make sure that should the unexpected happen, I’m prepared.

Once you’ve found your why, Genkin says, you can move on to finding your financial style. Much like refining personal style by experimenting with clothing, she says, trying on different financial styles can be part of coming into your own as a financially disciplined adult.

“Young adulthood is a process of getting to know yourself,” Genkin says, and personal proclivities when it comes to money are no exception.

My financial style

For some people, Genkin says, that style may be more risk-seeking, while others might hew more conservative. There are those who prefer to have just a general sense of their spending, but don’t need more than that because they naturally don’t want a lot of things. Others want to be obsessed with every decision; that’s how they feel secure about their finances.

Neither works for me. My style is to be more removed, and think about finances as little as possible, because obsessing over it just makes me even more anxious. I’m a worrier by nature and have (mostly) accepted that rather than trying to change it. But constantly worrying about—or neglecting—money is no way to live.

Complicating that style is that, unlike my sister who tends not to eat out or shop, I sometimes relish an impulse buy. And those impulsive purchases—be they a cup of coffee or a last-minute trip—build into habits. For instance, my $6.50 Dunkin’ breakfast and coffee, three times a week, adds up to over $1,000 each year. Compounding this small purchase and others like it over decades adds up to a lot of money.

So how do I mesh my financial style with my “why” to develop some disciplined financial habits? It starts by setting things up so I don’t have to constantly think about them, both practically and psychologically.

Automation is my friend

One strategy is to stop comparing myself to other people and their money habits. If I measure myself against a natural saver like my sister, for instance, I get angry when I fall short. I know that I, like many people, won’t manually move money from a checking account to a separate savings fund, as my sister does.

And that’s OK. Instead, as Genkin suggests, I can automate transfers to my savings each paycheck and allow myself a bit more latitude with what’s left. For someone like me, not seeing the cash in the first place can help, she says. “If you don’t see it, you’re going to work around it.”

By meeting my savings goals with those automatic transfers, then working within a new set of constraints, I can take some of the day-to-day neuroticism about spending too much out of the equation.

I’ve been automating some savings for the past few years. But increasing the amount by 10 percentage points and shoring up my emergency fund to reach four months of living expenses feel like good goals for 2026—in line with my “why” and my financial style.

Once I’ve increased my contributions, the rest of my pay becomes something I can spend on an occasional latte or new outfit without fueling the guilt that I’m not saving enough. That gnawing self-reproach is one of the reasons I’ve felt so defeatist about resolutions in the past.

Another thing I know about myself is that I hate failing, and once I fall short of a goal, I tend to write it off. Last year’s resolution of hitting the gym more often fell by the wayside around February. Once I started missing days, I lost momentum and stopped going. This year, I hope to look at things more holistically, without putting pressure on myself to be perfect and balking when I fall short.

For me, Genkin’s most important reminder is that discipline is a habit, not a pass/fail proposition. Even if I can’t save as much as I would like, the act of setting some money aside from every paycheck and thinking carefully about my spending is cultivating that discipline.

It’s about “progress,” she says, “not perfection.”

Source: WSJ