🧠 New year, new defaults: how to make money habits stick
- Kacper Duda
- Jan 7
- 3 min read
January, with its resolutions, has a talent for making us believe we’ve become a brand-new person overnight. But a recent survey shows that only 11% of people keep their New Year’s resolutions for the whole year.
The reality is simple: the calendar flips, but your routines likely come with you. And that’s fine. You don’t need a personality transplant to improve your finances. You need a setup that still works when life gets busy.
This week is about building money habits that run on defaults, not motivation.
Read on to learn about:
The 4 behavioural levers that decide whether a money habit sticks or fades
How to design defaults so progress happens even when you’re busy
January’s habit series, starting with goal setting you can set up in 5 minutes
Why habits don’t stick (and what works instead)
Most habit advice is basically: “try harder”. That’s not useful, because money habits don’t fail on knowledge. They fail when life gets busy.
So here are four levers, grounded in basic behavioural psychology, that decide whether a habit survives real life:
1) The future feels far away (present bias)
Saving is a delayed reward, spending is instant. Make progress feel immediate by tracking one number that can move quickly (buffer, savings pot, or card balance).
2) Too many decisions (friction and defaults)
If you have to choose every day, you’ll eventually choose the easy thing.
Your system needs good defaults: automate the good stuff (payday savings, bills) and put one simple cap on your biggest spending leak.
3) Identity beats intention (identity and consistency)
“I should” is fragile. “I’m the kind of person who…” sticks.
Pick one identity (salary-day saver, no card debt, monthly checker) and prove it with one small repeatable action. Repetition is what makes it real.
4) What you don’t see will drift (feedback loops)
Money rarely breaks from one big mistake. It drifts.
A simple scoreboard fixes that: one monthly check-in, one number to watch, one action to take.
Remember one thing:
Don’t aim for discipline. Aim for design. Make the good choice easy, then make it automatic.
Now that we’ve covered the psychology, let’s make it practical.
Throughout January, we’ll add one core money habit each week (on top of our usual content). Small, high-impact, and set up in minutes. By the end of the month, you’ll have a simple system you can keep running for the rest of 2026.
This week, we start with the one that unlocks everything else: goal setting.
Habit 1: goal setting that doesn’t collapse by week 3
Most people do one of two things: They either set a big, fuzzy goal (“save more”), or they set a number with no direction behind it.
Do both, but in the right order.
Start with a macro goal, then run it in 90-day sprints
Your macro goal is the headline for the year. Your 90-day goal is the next checkpoint you can realistically execute.
Example:
Macro goal (2026): “Build a proper emergency buffer.”
Next 90 days: “Add AED 5,000 to my buffer by end of March.”
Pick your payday move
A 90-day goal sticks when it’s tied to the day your money arrives.
Decide one action you’ll repeat each month, starting with the next salary:
Build: move AED X into a goal pot (savings, buffer, holiday, school fees), or
Clear: pay AED X off a credit card or loan (extra, on top of the minimum)
Automate it if it’s easy. If not, set a recurring reminder. Either way, the default stays the same.
Tiny action today: Goal setting (5 minutes): Open Notes and write three lines:
My 2026 money goal is: ____
My next 90-day target is: ____
On payday, I move AED ____ to ____
New year habits do not stick because you want them. They stick because you set a default and repeat it.
So start small: do today’s tiny action and set your payday move for the next 90 days. That one default will do more than a perfect plan you never follow.
Over January, we’ll build on it. Each week we’ll add one more habit to lock in for 2026, until your system runs in the background while you get on with life.
Next week
Next week we’ll look at high-interest savings in the UAE and what to do with your cash when interest rates are moving.
We’ll keep it simple: where the best rates actually are, what “up to” really means, and the key conditions that decide what you earn in practice. If you want the detail, we’ll also cover the fine print like caps, minimum balances, and any salary or spend requirements.
Disclaimer: Please bear in mind that this email does not constitute financial advice. Any choices you make you are solely responsible for. We always aim to provide highest quality, independent views but do your own research to ensure you’re comfortable with any changes you make to your personal finances.
