Those New Year's Resolutions Can Be Expensive. Here Are 3 Ways to Better Yourself on the Cheap

Plus, tips from bestseller Atomic Habits on how to make those resolutions stick.

New year, new you. Right? Right. Except, those New Year's resolutions don't come cheap. Which stinks, because one of your resolutions is to save more money.

Wellness subscriptions. Gym memberships. Tracking saving and spending. Ugh. It all costs something -- money, time, or mental health.

Nevertheless, millions of Americans are bravely committing to a wealthier 2023. A whopping 66% of Americans plan on making a financial resolution for the new year.

Thankfully, New Year's resolutions don't have to be expensive. You can check those boxes and keep your spending to a minimum. Here are three ways to better yourself on the cheap, including advice from the author of Atomic Habits to help you stick to your resolutions.

1. Eat at home

Food is excellent -- but eating out is expensive. Folks spend on average more money on food than insurance, healthcare, or entertainment. Despite inflation, I've found groceries typically cost less than ordering Din Tai Fung delivery (to my eternal disappointment).

Grocery shopping is necessary for eating in, but it gets tedious. Folks who dislike grocery shopping may consider using grocery delivery services like Instacart. Depending on how users spend their saved time, grocery delivery may be cheaper than going to the grocery store.

You've got the groceries, but cooking can be a chore. James Clear, author of bestseller Atomic Habits, suggests folks make good habits easy and bad habits difficult. Here's how you might apply those principles to eating at home versus dining out/ordering in:

• Stick to simple meal plans. (Make good habits easy.)
• Delete restaurant delivery apps after each use. (Make bad habits difficult.)
• Automate monthly grocery deliveries through apps like Instacart. (Make good habits easy.)

Eating at home is a great way to fast-forward fitness and finance resolutions. Consider exploring the best grocery credit cards to maximize in-person and online savings. For example, my Discover credit card gives me 5% back on grocery shopping this quarter.

2. Exercise with YouTube

Yoga gurus. Treadmill buddies. Bodyweight trainers. There's something for everyone on YouTube. Instead of committing to a gym or wellness club membership, consider subscribing to a single YouTube fitness/wellness channel.

The benefits of exercising through YouTube are many:

• It's free.
• You can work out in the privacy of your own home.
• If you grow bored with your current channel, you can instantly switch to another.

Atomic Habits recommends you bundle good habits with things that make you happy -- it makes folks more likely to stick with new habits. Here are three ways to apply this principle to at-home exercises:

1. Light a pleasant-smelling candle before relaxation sessions.
2. Wear your favorite raggedy outfit, the one you only wear at home.
3. Set aside ten minutes after the session for you to engage in a favorite hobby.

Exercising through YouTube is a powerful way to become healthier on the cheap. I subscribe to "Yoga With Adriene," a popular yoga channel on YouTube. For the low price of a thirty-second advertisement, I get a one-on-one yoga session. Plus, I get to wear jammies and light candles, which makes me happy.

3. Automate your savings

Manually shoving money into your savings account is draining. You've got to resist the temptation to spend -- making saving harder than it has to be.

Atomic Habits recommends folks use technology to automate good habits. One way to do that is by automating savings. Here are three ways you might go about doing so:

1. Turn on automatic round-ups.
2. Turn on automatic savings account deposits.
3. Turn on automatic daily/weekly/monthly stock investments.

Check with your employer or broker to see if they offer ways to automate savings. The best banks and stock brokers provide ways to save automatically by turning on in-app settings. For example, I automate savings account deposits through my Chime mobile app.

Are you brainstorming resolutions? The top 10 financial New Year's resolutions for 2023 offer ideas on how to save. The best resolutions are sticky, effective, and affordable. Making new habits easy, tempting, or automatic may help you get the most of your 2023.