This Financial Therapist Shares 3 Ways to Set Financial-Related Goals in 2025

When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, your finances are just as important as your emotional and physical well-being.

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin / Tina Rae Photo

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When the New Year rolls around, many of us focus our annual goals and resolutions around things like physical fitness and eating well. And while those types of changes are admirable, there are also plenty of other areas of life that deserve your attention, too. Consider your finances. There’s no better time than the beginning of a brand-new calendar year to prioritize financial wellness, no matter your particular goals.

We recently chatted with Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, founder of Mind Money Balance, whose platform examines the intersection of mental health and money, to get the scoop on how to align your personal finances with your goals for the New Year. The financial therapist, author and podcast host says that if you feel financially stressed, you’re not alone. Whether you’re in debt or don’t have an emergency fund in place, Bryan-Podvin stresses that it’s O.K.—and the first step in getting yourself to a better place both financially and mentally is to neutralize some of the cultural notions we’re told about money problems.

“ We have this story in the U.S. that if you work hard and you go to work every day and you do a good job, you’ll earn enough money to make ends meet, or if you just stopped buying those lattes or that avocado toast, then you would have an emergency fund, you just need to have more willpower,” Bryan-Podvin says. “But we don't really think about how true those things are. We just tend to believe them. And when we believe these types of tropes or stories that float around in our culture, we tend to believe things like debt is bad, and if I have debt, then I’m a bad person ... And if we can stop demonizing [these tropes] and making them mean something about who we are, then we can actually start to take action on getting in a better place.”

Below, Bryan-Podvin provides her expertise on how to set financial-related intentions in 2025.

Review your finances from last year

First, take a look at how close you were to reaching your 2024 financial goals, Bryan-Podvin suggests. If you set a particular goal last year and got a third of the way there, don’t be discouraged. Instead, ask yourself what you can learn from the experience, then set smaller, more meaningful goals for the months to come.

 “What goals did you have in 2024? How close were you to achieving those goals or not achieving those goals? What were things that made it difficult for you to stay on track?” are all questions you should pose to yourself, according to Bryan-Podvin. “Be kind and compassionate and curious and investigate what went well or what didn’t go well for you in 2024 and take some of those lessons into 2025 with you.”

Lindsay Bryan-Podvin / Tina Rae Photo

Look to the future

This tactic requires some creativity. Imagine yourself on New Year’s Eve 12 later this year, getting ready to welcome 2026 and toasting to your financial success throughout 2025. Since everyone’s financial-related goals are bound to be different, this type of future-casting can help you determine whether you want to prioritize building an emergency fund, improving your credit score or paying off debt, for example.

“ What’s the financial goal that you would be so excited to have achieved or to have celebrated? That can give you an idea of what really matters to you in this coming year,” Bryan-Podvin says.

Find community

While we are all individually responsible for our finances, treat your financial wellness like you would training at the gym, Bryan-Podvin suggests. Just like you would work with a trainer to build muscle mass, find community to help with external motivation where your finances are concerned.

 “Find somebody who can be your financial accountability buddy,” Bryan-Podvin suggests. “It might be your partner, it might be a group of friends, it might be somebody in a Facebook group, but really thinking about how can you get support to help you out along the way [can make all the difference].”

Stay tuned to SI Swimsuit’s 31 Days of Wellness to continue to learn how to take charge in the year ahead!

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