How to actually achieve your 2025 financial goals
Plus December 2024 spending recap
There’s never a bad time to set goals, but I think the best time is January 1st. For the past few years, I’ve made vision boards for the year ahead. For 2023, my vision board included things like “visit Alaska” (I accomplished that) and “read before bed” (I did not accomplish that). For 2024, my vision board included things like “2x workout per week” (I exceeded this goal) and “make my money work for me” (wasn’t the best at this one).
Despite not reaching all my goals and manifestations, I have made way more progress on them since making vision boards compared to before I started making them. It helps me keep focus and feel more purpose. There’s a few other things I’ve done to achieve my goals:
Set reminders you can’t ignore
Write the goals down—it makes them real. Put that sheet of paper on your desk, on your fridge, or take a picture of it and make it your phone background. Make them public, even if that just means telling one of your closest friends who can help hold you accountable.
Reward smaller milestones
If your goal is to grow your emergency fund to $20,000, reward yourself for every $5,000 of growth. It might seem counterproductive to reward yourself monetarily (buying something to celebrate the goal), but if it’s something small that doesn’t set you back, it’ll help you achieve your goals faster. It’s the same philosophy as using cash envelopes instead of a credit card—the amount of money you’re missing in credit card points you’re saving by not buying things you don’t need.
Be fluid with your goals
It’s okay if you change your goals throughout the year. When I look back at old vision boards, I see things I haven’t achieved, and with a lot of those things, I’m not upset about it! In some cases, I realized partway through the year that I didn’t want the same thing that I did months ago. Some people make vision boards just for a few months or half the year, which is a great idea if it’s hard to visualize where you want to be a full year from today.
It was hard to come up with personal finance goals for this year. I’ve felt a lot of uncertainty throughout this year, so I made some goals small, and I included a couple bigger reach goals.
Use my credit card points
I have a bad habit of letting them sit in my account collecting dust. I want to actually use them this year, ideally to fund a trip.
Buy nothing from Amazon
This one was inspired by
’s 2024 intentional buy recap. I already spend very little on Amazon ($162.63 this past year), but I’d like to get that number down to $0, redirecting that spending towards small businesses.Buy at least 50% of clothing secondhand
I spent almost $1,500 on clothing this year, and very little of that was secondhand. I used to go thrift shopping all the time, and now I do way less. I’d like to shop secondhand because it’s cheaper, more sustainable, and honestly more fashionable—my favorite pieces in my closet were found secondhand.
Max out Roth IRA throughout the year (or earlier in the year)
I have a bad habit of investing money in one lump sum near the end of the year, and I’d like to max out my Roth IRA earlier in the year, ideally over a few months.
Grow my net worth by 25%
This is a huge one that I’m not sure is possible (and is dependent on how the stock market does), but I’m going to try!
What are your personal finance goals? Drop them in the comments!
My other personal finance goal is to keep writing Ten Dollar Latte. I always enjoyed talking about personal finance with friends—it’s such a “taboo” topic that needs to be talked about more. And I always loved the idea of starting something where I could talk about personal finance more openly, but it wasn’t until I discovered Substack twelve months ago that I realized this was the perfect platform to use.
That being said, the newsletter has already gone through a few iterations this year, from longer-form essays on personal finance topics, to the Making it in NYC series, to the monthly spending recaps. I’d love to learn more about what you want to see in Ten Dollar Latte in 2025—let me know below:
Anything else you want to see more of? Drop me a note in the comments!
And a HUGE shoutout to everyone who discovered Ten Dollar Latte this year and subscribed, commented, and shared my posts. I love the community we’ve built here and I’m so excited to make it bigger and better in 2025.
I already shared my annual spending wrapped, but I still want to share a quick recap of my spending from this month. It was a great month—I celebrated my 28th birthday, went home for the holidays, and enjoyed the holiday decorations all around the city.
Fixed Monthly Costs:
Variable Monthly Costs:
Dining Out: $229.45
Groceries/Household: $280.98
Transportation: $151.85
Drinks Out: $139.06
Health: $21.97
Hobby/Experience: $192.30
Gifts/Donations: $299.46
Clothing/Makeup: $195.43
Totals:
$1,510.50 in variable expenses
$2,669.23 in fixed expenses
$4,179.73 in total expenses
I spent more on gifts this month than any other month, which was to be expected with the holiday season. But I spent less on groceries than I have all year, which I also expected since I was home for the holidays. One of my favorite purchases this month was lunch with a friend in midtown after her final round interview for a new job (she got the job!).
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i love this!!!! and am glad my post helped set your no amazon goal - you got this!!! 🫶🏻
great post & great newsletter overall. my huge goal this year is to actually budget & track all my spending, habits, etc. so going through your posts have inspired me even more & given me some nice inspo on how to do so. thank you !!