Simple ways to build good money habits

Having done this job for a few years now, one thing I’ve begun to notice is a vast amount of personal finance advice is – for better or worse – quite prescriptive. You know, the sort of stuff that’s like, “If you just invest $50 a week/stop buying takeaway coffees/eat more beans, then you too can be rich like me.”

I’ve always had a bit of an issue with this approach (especially the coffee angle). Don’t get me wrong, most of the advice is sound and sensible, but I think it’s the fact that it is so prescriptive that gets me. It’s easy to say, “Just do this every day/week,” but it’s much harder to actually do it.

What’s the problem?

This isn’t some sort of hot take – everyone knows that building habits is really hard. If it wasn’t, we’d all be super healthy and there probably wouldn’t be as much need for money advice. Indeed, a recent survey from online investing platform Stockspot showed almost half of us (45 per cent) want to invest and save more consistently in 2026.

Again, this seems like a sensible and achievable goal, and much more reasonable than the ridiculous “go to the gym” New Year’s resolutions. But saying you want to be more consistent and actually being more consistent are, sadly, two very different things.

What you can do about it

So if you’d like to be more consistent with your money this year, before setting that goal of saving or investing however much, first try to nail down how you’ll go about it. Here are some ideas to start you off:

• Start with a clean slate: Not to bang the “new year, new you” drum too much, but if you’re trying to build a new habit, this is a great time to start. Didn’t save as much as you’d have liked last year? Budgeting fell by the wayside? It doesn’t matter − you’re a different person now! However, you can still learn from what did and didn’t work in your previous attempts to make this year more successful. I, for example, will not remember to do anything unless I’m prompted, which means I rely heavily on reminders in my phone and post-it notes on my desk. Maybe you’re the same, or maybe you require a different framework to help build a habit, so start by deciphering what that framework is and put it into practice. Finally, don’t be afraid to change it up – there’s no point sticking with something if it’s not working out.
• What’s your mindset? One of the most commonly overlooked parts of financial advice is tackling how you think about money, rather than how you save or spend it. Many people naturally have a pretty negative attitude towards their finances, and changing this, even a little, can be a big help when it comes to building new habits. Money expert Paridhi Jain frequently discusses the importance of changing your mindset, writing last year that trying to “brute force” your finances often yields only short-term results before you return to your previous patterns of avoidance. “Start with an emotional shift, and you have better prospects of success long-term,” Jain says. “What negative emotions have you attached to your finances and why? What shifts in your emotional experience would enable you to lessen the negative? If you’re feeling down about a past failure, find a way to see the value of your journey, appreciate where you are and see the potential enjoyment in building yourself up.”
• Out of sight, out of mind: We live in a world where basically anything can be automated at the touch of a button, so why not make that work for you? Setting up systems that do the hard yards can be one of the easiest ways to start building a new habit, says Renae Vercoe, financial advisor at Money Mode. “Regular saving and investing, done steadily over time, tends to have a much bigger impact than sporadic big efforts followed by long gaps. Automating a regular investment or savings amount, either straight from your pay or from your bank account just after pay day, can be a game changer in making the process effortless,” she says. “When money moves before it can be spent, consistency becomes much easier and far less reliant on motivation.” Most modern banking and investment apps allow you some level of automation, and you can take it one step further by automating the investment before it even hits your bank account by salary sacrificing your super. Sure, you can’t actually access it until you retire, but even a little each month can make a massive difference.
• Start small: Yes, if you save $2000 a month for two years you’ll be in a fantastic spot financially, but for many of us that sort of target just isn’t realistic. Instead, Gemma Mitchell, head of advice at Rask, recommends working out what is a realistic target for you and starting there, even if it’s only a little bit. “Where people often come unstuck with a savings or investing goal is setting the bar too high and going all or nothing. They aim to save a huge amount, then keep dipping into it, and it starts to feel like they’re ‘bad with money’. Most of the time, they’re not bad with money, the plan was unrealistic,” she says. “It’s far healthier to start smaller and add money at the end of your pay cycle, than to dip into it and feel like you’ve failed.”

Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.