A YouGov poll conducted at the tail-end of 2024 confirmed that many people still make New Year’s resolutions on an annual basis.
Keeping them? Well, that’s the hard part… especially for the people of Belfast.
In fact, in 2025, 63% of Belfast’s population that had made a resolution or two had already given up on them just two weeks into January… the highest percentage of any UK city.
So here’s some practical advice to cover most of the more common resolutions, those being improving one’s own financial or physical health, in the new year.
Financial Health
According to those in the know, one of the biggest obstacles to upholding resolutions is setting goals that are too ambitious or unrealistic.
When it comes to our financial health, slow and steady gains are the way forward.
Creating a spending spreadsheet can be helpful, with every single penny spent documented. That way, you might be able to find some easy gains: one less takeaway a month, a few less coffees, cutting back on subscriptions that you rarely use… before you know it, you might have an extra £50 a month in your pocket.
You should consider your appetite for risk, too. When playing the lottery, or at online casinos with real money, players should understand the theoretical probability of how their spending will pan out. Online slots, for example, have a published Return to Player (RTP) rate that dictates roughly how much you can expect to return from a session. A game like Big Bass It’s A Whopper, for example, has an RTP of 92.00% – 93.02%, meaning that for every £100 bet, you might expect the game to pay back £92-3 to players over time, while accepting that these games are ultimately governed by randomness.
So, if your New Year’s resolution is to be financially healthy, understanding the risk-reward ratio of your spending is a good place to start, factoring in how much you’re willing to spend on entertainment value alone without expecting to gain anything material.
Talia Loderick, a ‘money coach’, advises playing the long game. The new year can be a great time to set out a plan for the 12 months ahead, so why not set yourself a target amount that you’d like to save in 2026 by making small, sustainable cuts to your spending?
Physical Health
Many of us look to start the year off by improving our health after the festive celebrations – ‘new year, new me’ and all that.
But one of the reasons that such intentions come grinding to a halt each January is that we don’t set ourselves small, achievable goals; it’s nigh-on impossible to go from couch to Mo Farah without a lot of hard work and sweat in-between.
The idea of getting fit should be taken on a step-by-step basis. Start off by walking, as research shows that just 30 minutes a day – those all-important 10,000 steps – can be a significant help to our respiratory health.
Competitive readers can time their walks, making a resolution to beat their personal best – even if it’s just by a second or two – each time they pound the pavement.
Before long, you may even feel ready to up the tempo with a light jog; it’s the ‘slow and steady’ approach that is most likely to become ingrained in your daily routine, rather than unachievable goals that leave you sweaty, red-faced and out of breath.
There’s always a stack of new hobbies that can be taken up in the great outdoors, all while exploring Northern Ireland’s natural beauty. Hiking and jogging will help achieve those fitness goals, while cycling and water sports like canoeing and paddleboarding offer an opportunity to get out of the city for a while.
These are just some ideas for improving your financial and physical health in the new year, as well as enhancing your spare time with new hobbies and interests.
So could 2026 finally be the year that the people of Belfast finally crack this whole new year’s resolution thing?
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