Achieving your financial goals often takes time and discipline. Misty Ford of HomeStreet Bank provides six resolutions to make sure you’re not losing sight of your goals and benchmarks as the year progresses. 1. There’s no good or bad spending. Change your money mindset. Look at money as a way to achieve a goal, like buying a home or car. “When you consider your spending, you can decide if that is going to be helping you get towards that goal or detract from it,” Ford said. 2. Create an emergency savings each paycheck. Life happens, and unplanned expenses pop up. If you don’t have an emergency fund set, it can detract from your goal. Even $10 a paycheck can help you establish an emergency fund. 3. Fine-tune or create a budget. HomeStreet Bank offers a tool on its website to help you create a budget if you don’t have one. If a budget exists, make a resolution to fine-tune it even further. Make adjustments that create a higher level of control over expenses and income. Use the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. Fifty percent of your income should be spent on needs, 30 percent on wants and 20 percent towards your savings. 4. Track your spending. “If you’re not tracking it, you don’t really know what you’re spending your money on,” Ford said. Watch credit card statements for auto-renewals and subscriptions that can eat away at savings. Monitor your statements for any fraudulent charges too. 5. Establish or maintain a good credit score. A solid credit score helps you obtain lower interest rates when you do want to borrow money to buy a car or house. To maintain it, it’s important to make your payments on time and keep your balances low on revolving accounts like credit cards. 6. Increase retirement plan contributions by 1 percent (or more). Almost everyone will want to retire someday, so vow to make those later years more financially comfortable. Raising retirement contributions by 1 percent this year is a good starting point. To learn more and find free financial resources to help with these resolutions, visit the HomeStreet Bank website. Sponsored by HomeStreet Bank. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KING 5's New Day Northwest is Western Washington's only local daytime talk show. Watch it weekdays at 11 a.m. PST on KING 5 TV and streaming live on http://www.king5.com. #newdaynw 🢒 Follow New Day Northwest! 🢐 FACEBOOK 🢒 https://www.facebook.com/newdaynw TWITTER 🢒 https://twitter.com/newdaynw INSTAGRAM 🢒 https://www.instagram.com/newdaynw