Save more money. That was the most popular New Year's resolution in 2025 and the second most popular in 2026, according to Statista.

There's a difference between making a resolution and acting on it, however. Get on your path to better financial health by taking care of some routine personal finance tasks. Right now at the beginning of the year—after the holiday crunch and before tax season, when you're planning your annual travel and expenses—is a great time to do it.

1. Start Budgeting

If you already budget your money, the beginning of a new year is a great time to review last year's spending and consider where you want your money to go in the months ahead.

If you want to start budgeting for the first time, I recommend using a personal finance app for it. Apps that specialize in budgeting make the job more efficient and more accurate than doing it on paper. The reason is that they use your spending history rather than guesswork. They look back at the past few months of transactions across your credit cards, Venmo, checking account, and other financial accounts and classify every dollar you spent into categories. The result is a clear picture of how you typically spend your money, which gives you a realistic starting point for creating budgets.

Apps such as Copilot Money, YNAB (both recommended by WIRED), and Quicken Simplifi (similar but costs less) do much of this work for you. If you want to reduce your spending on, say, restaurants or entertainment, the app tracks your spending in real time and warns you as you get close to the limit you set. T...