{"id":596,"date":"2021-01-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/why-january-is-the-best-time-to-start-your-financial-journey-and-how\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T19:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:39:14","slug":"why-january-is-the-best-time-to-start-your-financial-journey-and-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/why-january-is-the-best-time-to-start-your-financial-journey-and-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Why January is the Best Time to Start Your Financial Journey (and How)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Welcome to 2021! I won\u2019t even joke about 2020 being a bad year, because at its core, I think it was just different<\/em>. I learned a lot, maximized opportunities, and perfected the pivot.<\/p>\n

That being said, I think January 2021 is a unique opportunity for starting anew<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

When I first got involved in the personal finance world, I was seriously overwhelmed by the amount of data<\/em> most bloggers seemed to have about themselves and their own spending habits. These people could tell you exactly how much they spent every month for the last 5 years, how much they\u2019d invested, their net worth percent change month over month, and every other metric under the sun. As someone who couldn\u2019t even tell you what I had spent on lunches out the week before, I felt inherently behind.<\/p>\n

But I was inspired, and the idea of having complete control over my finances was alluring.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to now: I\u2019m<\/em> one of those people who has a meticulously updated spreadsheet of years of spending and saving data, and I\u2019d protect that spreadsheet with the fervent intensity I used to reserve for planning 21st birthday shot lists and outfits for football games (it\u2019s called #growth, people).<\/p>\n

Having been on the intimidated \u201cother side\u201d of this post, I know how it feels.<\/p>\n

The beginning of a brand new year is the best time to start.<\/h4>\n

For one thing, it\u2019ll enable you to capture an entire year of data. While you could technically start anytime, there\u2019s something psychologically empowering about starting on January 1 of a brand new year. You feel<\/em> like you have a fresh start, which is a powerful emotion to have on your side when starting a new habit (because at its core, that\u2019s what becoming a financially responsible person is \u2013 a habit).<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019ve wavered in the past, I encourage you to try again armed with the information on this site. After all, I made 3-5 budgets (and attempted to use Mint an equal number of times) on and off for a year before it actually started to stick. Once I got the momentum on my side, I found it impossible to stop<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Where to start?<\/h4>\n

If there were a single sentence that summarized all of personal finance beginners, it\u2019d be, \u201cI don\u2019t know where to start!\u201d<\/p>\n

The magic that underlies this feeling of utter helplessness is that there is no wrong place to start<\/em>. Even if you\u2019re most comfortable sitting down with a pen and paper with your bank account pulled up on your phone and manually writing down all your fixed costs, the sense that you have to find the \u201cperfect starting point\u201d is a falsehood. <\/p>\n

Personal finance is just one big web. It\u2019s not linear. You can pick anywhere on the web to begin, and then meander to different places as you go.<\/p>\n

To make the process easier for people who are starting their first budgets and investing plans, I created the Wealth Planner<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s unique in that it actually makes recommendations based on your income, and I think it\u2019s a cheap way to eliminate confusion (but you certainly don\u2019t need something this robust to begin!). My first net worth tracker was a hideous Excel spreadsheet in black and white with a few labeled cells and simple \u201c=SUM\u201d formulas. This Wealth Planner is certainly a \u2018roided up version of my O.G., and it bakes in all the knowledge I\u2019ve learned over the past two years.<\/p>\n

A checklist of stuff to grab before you sit down to set up your budget<\/h4>\n