Use money to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions in 2020

Do you have trouble keeping your new year’s resolutions every year? Well, we’ve discovered one surefire way to ensure that you keep yours this year: just add some money into the mix.

If your resolution is to lose weight…

Bet money with a friend on who can lose more weight within a specific amount of time.

This would be perfect if you have a beach trip planned soon and want to make sure that your body is beach-ready in time for the trip. However, you don’t necessarily need a beach trip to get motivated for this. Friends Francis Angeles and Dang Alamazan, for example, had been struggling with their weight for years and thus decided that they needed more motivation to actually lose weight.

After careful deliberation, they decided to bet USD500 (around S$674) on who could lose the most weight in one month. Obviously, the bigger the amount, the bigger the motivation! A friend of theirs, who was there for the weigh-in before and after the challenge, also kept the money safe for the winner to make sure that they take the challenge seriously.

By the end of the month, Francis had lost a whopping 28 pounds, while Dang lost 15 pounds. So, even though Dang lost the money, at least there was a big weight loss difference anyway, proving just how effective this challenge is.

If your resolution is to travel more…

Save every S$2 or S$5 that you get as change from your daily transactions.

Before anything else, decide which bills you want to save to reach your goals. Then, no matter what you pay for during the day, whenever you get that bill as part of your change, save it. The rules are simple: do not spend the bills while you’re out for the rest of the day, keep the bills safe at home, and do not get tempted to spend them after that.

It might not seem like much if you only get to save S$2 or S$5 every other day, but there will be days when you get more 2s or 5s than you bargained for. And at the end of the year, you might just surprise yourself by the amount of money you’ve saved. You might even get to travel outside of Singapore because of it.

If your resolution is to quit a bad habit, like eating junk food or smoking…

Pay someone you trust a certain amount of money every time you break your resolution.

For this to work, you need to talk to someone you are around most of the time, like your significant other, your best friend, or someone in your family. Set a price and then make a pact that whenever you break your resolution by having a snack or having a cigarette, for example, you’ll have to make payment solutions to them.

You’ll be surprised by how strong your will power suddenly is when money is involved and your competitive streak sets in. Who wants to admit defeat to someone they love everyday, after all?

Have you tried any of these methods before? What have you done to ensure that you keep your resolutions every year? Share your secrets with us!