Grow Your Wealth and Leave a Legacy For Future Generations
The new year is nearly upon us—so it’s not too late to make your New Year’s Financial Resolutions. Remember: You don’t have to set rigid goals. Instead, focus on resolutions that support an abundance mindset and have fun while building generational wealth!
Explore our top 11 financial resolutions for the new year—and get the highest returns from 2023.
1. Turn Your Dreams Into Financial Resolutions
Create a financial roadmap for your dreams: Tapping into your goals helps you paint a picture of where you are going. Without a clear destination, making financial resolutions can feel overwhelming and lack purpose. The following steps will help you dream big and reconnect with the part of yourself that believes you deserve all of the incredible experiences life has to offer.
Step 1: Start by imagining your wildest dreams—without reservation.
Identify your big financial goals to create a sense of purpose and direction.
Example: I want to own a house near a city with a yard.
Step 2: Step out of your comfort zone.
Generate ideas for the future that stretch the limits of your imagination. Do you want to own your dream home? Live abroad with your family in the summer? Retire early? Make generous donations to support a cause? Come up with ideas that are so big that they feel uncomfortable. You’ll know you’re pushing your edge when you begin to think: ”Who am I to think I deserve so many wonderful things in life?”
Example: And that house should have an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Step 3: Write down your dreams—or find images that resonate with you.
Record your thoughts in a journal or make a vision board. Choose a method that supports your creativity.
Step 4: Step into your vision and act as if you’ve already arrived at your destination.
Begin to feel clear, empowered, satisfied, and open to everything life has to offer. Ask yourself the following questions about your dream destination: Where are you living, and what’s the view outside of your window? Who are the people that form your community? How much money do you need to support your vision? Don’t worry about how you will make the money just yet: Allow yourself to feel like everything you desire is already out there waiting for you.
2. Face Your Financial Fears
”Let yourself be gently pulled by the deeper desire of what you want.”
— Rumi
It’s normal to experience feelings of shame, fear, and uncertainty when you consider your financial goals. Everybody has anxieties about money—even the wealthiest among us.
If facing your financial fears seems insurmountable, here’s some good news. These feelings often pass when you take small steps to address your concerns. Overcome your financial fears with the following steps:
Step 1: Understand your money mindset and name your fears.
Alongside your genetics, you’ve inherited a monetary legacy that includes beliefs and stories about finances. If you’re like most of us, your family stories about money highlight hardship and struggle—evoking fear and shame rather than a sense of abundance.
The good news? You can listen to stories about money that inspire a sense of financial empowerment—and cultivate a positive money mindset. By taking ownership of your narrative, you have the opportunity to create a new future—one that is rooted in transparent, shame-free conversations and inspiring messages that support your financial freedom.
Become aware of your beliefs about money and name your fears. Ask yourself the following questions:
What are my family’s beliefs, messages, and stories about money?
What stories are rooted in fear?
What lessons did I learn from my family that support a positive money mindset?
Step 2: Listen to empowering money stories.
Once you’re aware of your beliefs about money, find new stories that can replace old, fear-based messages that no longer serve you. Don’t know where to start? Share stories and insights with your Hive on the Hive Wealth app.
Step 3: Practice mindfulness.
Fear is physical. When you’re experiencing it, your body unleashes biochemical responses that stop you from thinking clearly. It’s important to literally move through your fear before you try to overcome it. Mindfulness practices and simple exercises—like walking or jogging—can help you move through your fear and create inner calm.
3. Generate an Abundance Mindset
Tapping into your biggest dreams and overcoming financial fears generates an abundance mindset—a way of thinking rooted in a sense of possibility.
Consider the following practices to further cultivate an abundance mindset:
Step 1: Practice gratitude.
What you appreciate, appreciates.
In other words, whatever you give your attention to in life gains energy and momentum. Cultivate an abundance mindset with a simple gratitude practice: Write down what you are grateful for first thing in the morning. You can focus on one or two things—or create a long list. Don’t love to write? Record your gratitude practice with a voice app.
Step 2: Celebrate your successes.
What are you already doing to support a healthy financial future? Give yourself credit for all of your efforts and celebrate your wins.
4. Learn More About Money
If you’re like most people, you weren’t afforded the luxury of formal financial education. Like so many other essential parts of adulting—healthy living, cooking and nutrition, emotional literacy, relationships, and mental health, to name a few—the topic of money was left to parents or caregivers. While a lucky few were born into families with the time, knowledge, and patience to cover these extracurriculars, most of us stepped into our adult lives with the basic message: Get a job.
It’s almost 2023—time to learn more about money. We’re so lucky to live in a world with so much information at our fingertips. From articles and books to podcasts and videos, there’s an abundance of information available to you.
Here are some resources worth checking out:
Get started with the following books—and talk with the kids in your life about money to create a new generation of financially savvy youth and break the money taboo: The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, Broke Millennial, A Beginner’s Guide to the Stock Market, Heads up Money (for pre-teens and teens), The Everything Kids' Money Book: Earn it, save it, and watch it grow! (for kids 7-12)
Listen to our favorite podcasts: Redefining Wealth, Clever Girl Finance, Her Dinero Matters, Investing Insights, The Investor’s Podcast Network, Brown Ambition, and so many more.
Share your questions, favorite books, helpful podcasts, and insight with your Hive.
Seek out information from your community and the financial pros you admire.
5. Build a Supportive Financial Community
We created the Hive Wealth App to help you build a supportive, shame-free community of financial peers. Find your Hive: Share insights, gain wisdom, get inspired, and redefine your relationship with money.
Download our app or create your own group where you can talk freely about money—and break the money taboo.
6. Make a Budget
Follow a template, like the 50/30/20 budget rule, to help you manage your money, save for emergencies, and build a retirement fund. It’s simple: Divide your after-tax income—and make a plan.
It’s as easy as:
Step 1: Spend 50% on your needs.
Your ”needs” are your essentials only: Consider everything you couldn’t live without. From rent and mortgage payments to healthcare premiums and food costs, allocate half of your after-tax earnings to fund your bare essentials.
Step 2: Spend 30% on your wants.
Your ”wants” are all of the extra things in life that make you happy: This includes dinners out, vacation, and gym memberships, to name a few.
Step 3: Put away 20% in savings.
Once you have an emergency fund that can support you for three to six months (depending on your personal circumstances and risk tolerance), invest your savings in retirement accounts and index funds. Ready to build a more diverse portfolio? Consider real estate, investing in startups, and conservative investments like bonds as you approach retirement.
7. Save More, Spend Less
Save more, spend less: We know—hot take. If this financial resolution were easy, we’d all be wealthy. And it's particularly obnoxious to read if you’re feeling stressed about money. How can you save more and spend less when you're steeped in debt or living paycheck to paycheck? You might think about rent due, mouths to feed, and birthdays to shop for. We get it: Spending is way easier than saving—and life is expensive.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, skip to the next resolution—and return to the questions below when you’re feeling empowered. If you’re ready to get out of debt, grow your wealth, and improve your financial circumstances, consider the following questions:
Are there any ways you can lower your living costs and reduce spending—or make more money?
Are there things you can happily live without for a predetermined amount of time?
How can you make saving and getting out of debt fun?
Are there ways to gamify your journey?
8. Invest Your Money
Investing while young has significant advantages—but it’s never too late to make smart financial moves. Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.” Take advantage of compound interest and consider the following investment options:
Retirement Accounts
Stocks and Bonds
Mutual and Exchange Funds
Certificates of Deposit (CD)
Annuities
College Funds
Real Estate
9. Give What You Can
After nearly two years of pandemic life, it’s never been easier to get stuck in our comfort zones. Giving to others bursts our bubbles and connects us to the greater whole of humanity. Find a cause in your community that inspires a sense of generosity and donate time or money.
10. Track Your Progress—And Make Sure You’re Following the Right Map to Get Where You’re Going
Mark your calendar: Choose a day each month when you’ll return to your financial resolutions and track your progress. Refine and rework your financial roadmap as you gain new insights. The map should reflect your growing knowledge and sense of abundance. It will serve as a guide that will help you move in the direction of your big dreams and financial resolutions.
11. Build Generational Wealth
Generational wealth is defined as anything with monetary value that’s passed down through the family line. If you don’t have children of your own, you can choose beneficiaries or support a social cause. From cash and investments to educational gifts and family businesses, generational wealth offers significant financial advantages to younger generations.
Here at Hive Wealth, we’re expanding the definition of generational wealth to include the stories that are passed down through our families and communities. That’s why our first three financial resolutions for the new year are all about money mindset: We must become aware of the thoughts and beliefs that are motivating our behaviors around money before we take action. Without understanding our core motivations, we’ll continue to carry out our generational legacy—and repeat the mistakes of our parents and grandparents.
We learn from our family’s stories as well as inspiring anecdotes from peers and role models. If we want to create financial freedom and leave a legacy for our children or beneficiaries, we need to share empowering money stories. The narratives we have about money and the mindset they create impact our success in the world—and they have repercussions that can ripple through generations.
Start building generational wealth today and leave a legacy that will create a better tomorrow.
Read More: How to Build Generational Wealth