A new year and a fresh start 
We are already half way through January, most of us will have taken down the Christmas tree and be thinking of what’s ahead for the coming year.
Here at Osper we’ve been doing exactly that too 
In this post we reflect on some of our aims for the coming months, from an Osper-wide perspective, and we hear from members of the team on their individual aims. Take a look to hear what we are aiming for this year!
Building for the future
This is an exciting time at Osper! 
We’re working at full steam and focusing on building great user-requested features. One of these, the ability of children to pay their parents back, was received very positively by the Osper community at the end of last year 
We want to make sure that we deliver more features like this, which enable children and parents to use their Osper cards in new ways and teach children about the fundamentals of their personal finances, so that you end up with more of this: 
And less of this: 
The Fundamentals
A new year has led me to reflect on some basics around my own finances. I decided on a basic aim to make sure that every month I spend less than I earn, so that I can save even a small amount with each payday. It sounds simple, but I do have a habit of moving further and further into my overdraft if I don’t focus on not doing this 
These basic aims can be surprisingly difficult to stick to, and already I’m facing the dilemma of whether to book a summer holiday now using credit, or save up to make sure that I can definitely afford it. I know what I should do, but the temptation is still there! 
Lots of people have resolutions at the start of the new year, normally these focus on eating, exercising or being more positive. I wanted to focus in on financial resolutions, so asked around the office to see what others wanted to achieve this year financially 
Financial Resolutions
Here as Osper you think we would be a wise bunch when it came to taking care of our money and it looks as if a few of us in the office have some great ideas when it comes to turning those pennies into pounds.
So you know who I’m speaking about, here’s a labelled photo of the Osper gang from Christmas:
First of all, Rupert, on the community team wants ‘to do savings at the start and not the end of the month (when there is hardly anything left)’. Dan, another member of the community team also has has a focus on savings and wants to ‘stop impulse buying’.
Macey says that she wants to pay off her loan and seems pretty excited by that, which is what we like to see! And Ionuts, who works alongside Macey on the engineering team, wants to start investing in a pension (we don’t have a picture of Ionuts as he couldn’t make it to the Christmas party 
).
Shahriar, another of our engineers, has been a bit more specific with his savings goal and wants to increase the amount he saves compared to last year. Adam, on operations, simply wants to save more
We have a huge focus on savings, but Alan, in his typical thinking outside of the box style, specifically wants to learn more about the foreign exchange market!
So it does look as if savings wins out, and it makes sense really, as the more you save, the more you can do with your lump sum once you’ve met your goal.
Turning words into actions
When it comes to all new years resolutions, they are so easy to break – and that is the same for financial ones of course!
What I’ve done to help myself here, is come up with a budget on a simple spreadsheet that calculates all my ingoings and outgoings, I then assign a certain amount to spend on particular themes, like ‘food’ or ‘entertainment’.
I know that if I stick to these amounts I will be able to save a certain amount of my income this month, and I update the spreadsheet a couple of times a week, to make sure I’m keeping up to date – it’s easy to lose track of your spending!
Tracking what you’re spending on is definitely an important aspect of getting control of your finances.
A Fresh Start
We all have aims for where we want to end up financially in the year ahead, and it’s difficult to keep on top of those
At Osper we’re all going to try our best to be disciplined enough to keep our personal resolutions, but also to keep to our aim of developing the best Osper for all of our users.
If you have any examples of how you’re trying to save or better your finances this year we’d love to hear your stories!
Please get in touch about this or any Osper queries on the usual channels; by email (help@osper.com), by phone (020 3322 9090) or through our in-app chat.
Have a great day 
Jack and the Osper team
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