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

However, there is a difference between making a resolution and acting on it. Get on your way to better financial health by taking care of some routine personal finance tasks. Now at the beginning of the year—after the holiday crunch and before tax season, if you’re planning your annual travel and expenses—is a good time to do it.

1. Start Budgeting

If you’re already budgeting your money, the start of the new year is a good time to review the past year’s spending and consider where you want your money to go in the coming months.

If you want to start budgeting for the first time, I recommend using a personal finance app for this. Apps that specialize in budgeting doing work more efficiently and more accurately than doing it on paper. The reason is that they use your spending history rather than guessing. They look at past months of transactions on your credit cards, Venmo, checking account, and other financial accounts and classify every dollar you spend into categories. The result is a clear picture of how you spend your money, giving you a realistic starting point for creating budgets.

Apps like Copilot Money, YNAB (both recommended by WIRED), and Easy to simplify (similar but less expensive) will do most 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 approach the limit you set. That way you can make smart decisions HISTORY your budget is exhausted.

2. Max Out Your IRA

I am not a financial expert, and this is not financial advice. That said, a lot KNOWN Finance Resources say that increasing your annual IRA contributions as early as possible each year ensures that you reap the full benefits of interest compounding.

For 2026, the annual contribution limit has increased to $7,500 for people younger than 50, according to the IRS. If you’re 50 or older, the maximum is $8,600. These limits decrease and phased out if you earn more than a certain amount for the year.

If you can’t afford to transfer the maximum amount of money, you can always do what you can now and plan to contribute more later in the year. Plus, if you haven’t maxed out your contribution by 2025, there’s still time. You have until the extended tax filing deadline (April 15th most years) to contribute up to a total of $7,000 if you’re younger than 50 or $8,000 if you’re 50 or older.

3. Adjust Your Retirement and Savings Plans

Set-it-and-forget-it retirement savings? In this economy? Take a close look at all your retirement accounts and any special savings plans you have, such as a 529 planand adjust it as you see fit. Employer-sponsored retirement accounts sometimes have tools on online portals that guide you in making appropriate adjustments based on changes in your household income, projected retirement age, risk tolerance, and other factors.

The decisions you may have made about these accounts when you were 28 may not be the same decisions you make when you’re 45.

4. Check your Credit Report

A credit report is a history of your financial accounts and a way to measure your financial responsibility. It lists the accounts you’ve opened and closed, how long they’ve been open, current account balances, whether you’ve missed or made late payments, foreclosures in your name, and more.

Check your credit report a security role such as financial work. If someone uses your identity to open a line of credit, the new account will appear on your credit report. Finding evidence of fraud early can be the difference between stopping it in its tracks versus finding yourself in debt you didn’t commit.