New Year, New Financial Resolutions

by | Jan 13, 2026

By Caroline Grimont

It’s January, which means it’s resolutions time! As all of you, my loyal readers, know, I am a planner, which means this is about the time when I make my resolutions for year, usually allotted in various buckets – financial resolutions, social resolutions, personal resolutions, and professional resolutions.

Now I can’t help you with the last three of these, they are unique to you and your own circumstances, but I hope you find my financial resolutions for the year helpful as you consider your own. Just like with the other buckets, your financial resolutions will be uniquely your own, but there are some common principles which you may consider helping design successful financial resolutions for 2026.

For me, I must admit that I always start the year strong with my resolve, but as time goes on, I find my willpower weakening. There’s a secret reason for that – willpower doesn’t work. In 2018, Dr. Benjamin Hardy wrote a book about why, and I’m sure I’ll review it for this column at some point, but in short, he argues that willpower is needed when you don’t know what you want, and/or haven’t committed to something.

“The willpower approach doesn’t focus on changing the environment, but instead, on increasing personal efforts to overcome the current environment. What ends up happening? Eventually you succumb to your environment despite your great efforts to resist. If you’re required to use willpower:

  • You haven’t made up your mind.
  • Your desire (your “why”) for your goals isn’t strong enough.
  • You haven’t fully committed to what you’re going to do.
  • Your environment opposes your goals.”

Basically, he says, “Willpower sucks. Forget about it.”

So. If you can’t rely on willpower, what should you do? That is why the resolutions themselves matter.

Building S.M.A.R.T Financial Resolutions

Back in the 1980s, a man named Geoge Doran wrote a paper titled, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.” In it, he laid out the S.M.A.R.T. criteria, which are:

  • Specific – target a specific area for improvement
  • Measurable – quantify, or at least suggest, an indicator of progress
  • Assignable – say who will do it
  • Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given the resources
  • Time-related – by when

This means that you need to make specific resolutions, that are timebound, realistic, and measurable. Every one of these aspects is important. For example, a wishy-washy resolution like, “Save money” can either be immediately achievable by putting a loonie into a piggy bank, or completely unachievable because you haven’t added any details. So, let’s improve on that.

How about, “Save more money?” That is also likely not to be very successful. What is more? By when? You need to add more details. Something like, “Save $100,000 by December 31st, 2026” is better, because it has both time, and specificity in it. But is it realistic? If you make $500,000 a year, maybe, but if you make $85,000 a year, can you realistically expect to save $100,000? Maybe not in one year, but over time, possibly. Your goal needs to be realistic and tailored to your own specific circumstances.

It is also alright to make an annual financial resolution a single leg of a long journey. For example, say you want to retire in 30 years with $1 million in the bank. Here is an example using this calculator, if you save $1000 a month for the next 30 years at 6% growth per year, you’ll get there. But maybe you’re paying a mortgage, or are just starting out, or have a low salary and can’t save that much – then you’ll need to adjust either your goal, or your savings target. In which case, your financial resolution could be something like, “Save $6,000 in 2026 towards retirement in 2045.” That way, you have both a short-term S.M.A.R.T. resolution, leading towards a long-term financial goal.

Make it Easy to Achieve Your Resolutions

Once you have your S.M.A.R.T. financial resolutions, make it as easy as possible to achieve them. For me, that involves naming my accounts for each goal – my retirement accounts are my Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and my Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA.) I also have accounts for travel, an emergency fund, and a “treat” account for any surplus cash.

I then arrange all these accounts in order of priority, and after that, I automate transfers into each. At that point, I don’t need to do anything else, expect watch the accounts grow, and in December, see my financial resolutions achieved!

ETF Solutions from Harvest ETFs?

At Harvest Portfolios Group Inc., with our comprehensive suite of ETF offerings and multiple investor education articles, we  are providing tools that could help you on your financial journey. You can leverage the insights and strategies we’ve discussed along with our robust investment solutions, to help you build a portfolio that works for your vision, whether it is a cash-equivalent fund like the Harvest Canadian T-Bill ETF (TSX:TBIL), or an asset-allocation fund like the Harvest Balanced Income & Growth ETF (TSX:HBIG) (a 60/40 equity/fixed income portfolio that offers high monthly cash flows from covered calls,) or high income single stock ETFs. There’s something for every type of investor!

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