For those of us who are still in process of making New Year resolutions, my suggestion is to give high priority to financial aspects. Here are some resolution ideas that may change your financial future over course of time.

Saving

Lets make one thing clear! What ever amount of money you make it’s probably never enough! The way our consumer psychology works is our demand increases along with our income. This makes saving really a problematic task! Some people do have inborn ability to save willingly, but most have to force themselves. If you are one of these people, who find saving a difficult thing, you should consider methods described below.

•Commit to yourself that each month you will set aside minimum ten percent of your income for investment purposes. •Make a strict habit of depositing 10 percent of all your incomes directly to your saving account. •No matter what happens, don’t give up.

You might argue that your income is not enough to make any kind of savings. Believe me, once you try putting away 10 percent of your earnings, you will see that this really does not have any serious impact on your budget. So your first resolution is to save ten percent of all your incomes month after month. There is hardly any point to save if you don’t put your money to work for yourself! So, once you resolved to save, you need to invest your money wisely. Credit cards and other consumer loans

According to New York Times through out last decade use of credit cards has increased dramatically. The number of people having credit cards raised about 75 percent from 82 million in 1990 to 144 million in 2003. However, debt burden that they carry had grown 350 percent from US$338 billion to an astounding US$1.5 trillion. In 2003, according to same report, average household carried a debt of US$ 7,520 in comparison to US$2,550 in 1990.

Part One in a Five Part Series

Imagine what a professional football team would be like without a regimen of practice drills? Now take away their playbook and player statistics. What you have in this extreme scenario are highly talented (and perhaps overpaid) individuals participating in organized chaos. They might actually win a game or two, but in long run, this team is doomed.

Management Policy

I offer this illustration to drive home point of why any organization needs to examine existence and effectiveness of its management systems. If there are weaknesses or holes in your documented procedures (playbook), or benchmark measurements (stats), then you will want to take corrective action.

Process Phases

It is my experience that when a company attempts to establish its management systems for first time, it takes longer than expected, involves more people than planned, and grows in complexity.

To control this trend, I advocate dividing process into five (5) distinct phases, each with clear objectives:

1. Discovery

2. Planning

3. Development

4. Implementation

5. Rediscovery