It is the beginning of a brand new year. Palm State Mortgage knows that many of our clients, friends and readers are thinking about resolutions and goals for their financial life in 2013. There is very little doubt we are living in an Age of Financial Stress.

Whether you are a believer in creating realistic goals or generalized resolutions, reducing your financial stress might be a great personal finances focus for you in 2013. Chuck Jaffe of Market Watch with the Wall Street Journal advocates creating concrete, measurable goals, not resolutions.
Reducing financial stress is just one of the points on his list of goals for his financial life in the coming new year.

Question: What is “financial stress?” You might feel stress because of market news, fiscal cliff news, or simply in anticipation of the arrival of monthly bills. Financial stress is a destructive, negative nervousness about your national and personal fiscal situation.

Bigger Question: How do we cure it?

Answer:  Like many diseases, there might not be a cure. Certain financial worries are simply out of an individual’s personal financial control. However, we can reduce our own small, personal financial stresses. “Reducing stress is often about the little things.” Think of the below list as treatments for your personal financial stress condition.

1. Save a small, set amount each month, ear-marked to reduce debt.
2. Set up an emergency fund.
3. Re-evaluate some of your possessions, and sell some of the things you no longer need.
4. Take another look at your expensive telephone and Internet service plans. They might just need to be updated or changed to a more economical plan or company.
5. Examine your cable television subscription. Does the package still fit your needs and tastes? Do the same thing for your magazine subscriptions.

The value of doing these little goal oriented activities, is that you can visualize daily improvements. When you feel personal achievements within your grasp, the giant anxieties of Wall Street and the looming difficulties of the American economy, do not seem to be so overwhelming.  Hence, you have reduced some of your financial stress.

For 2013, our best advice is that you focus on a central goal. It might be preparing to retire, preparing to change careers, or purchasing your dream home. Once you have that goal in mind, make a list of the small, daily changes that will be necessary to achieve your dream.

Do not expect overnight results.

Often New Year’s Resolutions fall apart because, after a misstep or two, we abandon them. A list of small goals is concrete and specific. If you skip and fail in your focus, you can try again instead of giving up. We advise you to be focused and resolved on the little things you can improve in your financial picture.

As you create the small changes in your spending and saving habits, watch the bigger things fall into place. As you nibble away at your debts, for example, keep in mind that you can eat an elephant, one bite at a time!

Again, we take this opportunity to wish you a fabulous New Year’s Celebration. May you and your family and friends enjoy the celebration and warmth, that only togetherness can bring. We close with an ancient New Year’s Verse you might enjoy:

“A happy New Year!  Grant that I may bring no tear to any eye, when this New Year in time shall end.  Let it be said I’ve played the friend, have lived and loved and labored here, and made of it a Happy Year.”

-Your Friends at Palm State Mortgage wish you health, happiness,and harmony,  now, and through all the days of 2013.