12 Financial New Year's Resolutions for 2024

Forget about the past. Get your finances on the right track in the present, for the future.

​​​​​​​Key Takeaways:

• Look at your financial resolutions as more like a financial to-do list for the year.
• Financial situations change from year to year, which is why it's important to update everything, from homeowners insurance to what you put in your retirement accounts.
• Even if you've already achieved one of these financial goals, you can probably improve upon it.
• Making some financial progress is better than not making any.

January’s half over, but the year has still just begun. If you haven’t tried to whip your finances in shape, this is a good time to start. You don’t have to think of these as financial goals as resolutions, but more like a reboot to your yearly financial to-do list.

If you want 2024 to be a better money year for your money, here are 12 solid financial things to try and stick to:

• Budget, budget, budget.
• Save something every month.
• Pay yourself first.
• Pay down debt.
• Start investing.
• Continue investing.
• Make a will.
• Maximize credit card rewards.
• Consider opening an HSA.
• Analyze your insurance.
• Start a 529 plan.
• Work on fixing your worst financial habit.

SOURCE: U.S. News & World Report L.P.

HOW YOU CAN BENEFIT FROM COUPLE’S WORKOUTS

Why not extend your quality time together through couple’s workouts? Better yet, start your couple’s workouts this Valentine’s Day. If you need convincing, check out the following benefits of couple’s workouts:

• It gives you happiness as a couple: Exercise has many health benefits, including improving your general happiness. If you work out together you will both feel an endorphin high which improves your mood, leading to a healthier, happier relationship.
• It leads to more energetic, efficient workouts: By doing types of partner exercises you can boost your energy output and increase your exertion. This is because when you workout with someone else, you are encouraged to work harder.  
• It makes you more attractive to your partner: By doing partner exercises you will both feel more confident and healthy. This can lead to increased feelings of attraction towards each other.
• It helps you achieve your fitness goals: Just like exercising alone or in a group, couple’s workouts help you achieve your ultimate objective of becoming physically fit. By doing it with your partner, you are likely to keep each other on track to achieving your fitness goals.
• It enhances your emotional bond with each other: The rhythm, nonverbal matching, care and mimicry required in some couple’s workouts inevitably help strengthen the connection you share with your romantic partner. As you start to regularly perform partner exercises, you become more attuned to each other’s physical strengths and limitations and, more importantly, one another’s feelings and needs.

TYPES OF COUPLE’S WORKOUTS

It’s essential to incorporate both cardio and strength training into your couple workouts. Build your cardio by incorporating a variety of cardio equipment and strength training equipment. We’ve put together a list of couple’s workouts that combine cardio and strength, to get you and your partner on your way to becoming a fit couple.

START WITH THESE GREAT COUPLE’S WORKOUT

To get you started on your special Valentine fitness resolution, here are a few couple’s workouts you can try together

1. Kettlebell Runs

There’s nothing more motivating than a little healthy competition with your special someone.

Have your partner run about 200 metres as you do as many kettlebell swings as you can, whether in American or Russian style. Once your partner is back from their sprint or run, hand over the kettlebell as you make your own 200-metre dash. Your partner then proceeds to do as many kettlebell swings as possible, and then switches places with you to make another 200-metre dash as you do your kettlebell swings.

Remember to make a note of how many kettlebell swing reps you are making until one of you reaches 100. The challenge here is that the faster you or your partner runs, the fewer kettlebell swings your partner can do. You can both decide on the prize for the winner afterwards - a full body massage perhaps?

2. Squat with rotational pass

Start by standing back-to-back, then both drop into a low squat so that your thighs are parallel to the floor. Stay in this position throughout the exercise.

Ask your partner to hold the medicine ball to their chest. Rotating through their upper torso, your partner then hands you the ball on the left side. You’ll then rotate to the right, take the medicine ball and quickly pass it to the left so your partner can take the ball again on their right side. Do this move for eight to 12 reps, and then change directions.

3. Jump rope couple’s workout

For this simple jump rope couple’s workout, you’ll be using a timer. You’re both free to apply your own jump rope skill in this workout. You and your partner need to decide on your goal number of reps you’ll be hitting together. You can also determine how you’ll split your reps together or use the timer for switching. Try having one partner jumping while the other is resting, and then make a switch when one is fatigued or when the timer sounds.

Make sure to mark down how many full rounds you and your partner are able to finish at the end of your workout.

4. HIIT couple’s workout – getups and pull-ups

To work your core and upper body, you can perform this HIIT workout together. Ask your partner to lie down with their knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Meanwhile, you’ll be standing, knees bent, with your right foot positioned in between your partner’s feet.

Link your right hands and make sure you have a firm, tight grip. You’ll then pull, bringing your elbow toward your ribs while your knees stay bent and your back is straight. As you pull, your partner uses their core to jump up and land softly on the surface. By using your arm strength, you’ll assist your partner as they lower themselves back down on the floor.

Repeat the same procedure five times on each arm, then switch places with your partner. Complete two to three rounds of this workout, and always ensure your core muscles are engaged to prevent spinal injury.

5. Core Twister

For this exercise, you’ll need a Wall Ball.

Start in a kneeling position about 2-3m apart, both facing forwards, 90 Degrees to your partner with the knee closest to your partner up. One partner starts with the wall ball and throws it in a scooping like motion across their body to the other person by twisting through their torso. As your partner catches the wall ball it’s important they keep a strong core and legs to not fall over, and that they rotate away as they catch. Continue throwing back and forth for sets of 10-20 or create a rule whoever falls over the most has to cook the other person breakfast.

6. Squat jump

Make sure you have two resistance bands ready for this exercise.

Start by facing each other, with each one of you holding one end of each of the resistance bands. Make sure your arms are extended straight out in this step. Also, you both need to feel a slight tension from the ends of the bands.

Go into a squat position at the same time, bending your knees, sending your hips back as you keep your core tight, and gradually lowering as you maintain the position of your arms. Then, jump up in unison, keeping the band tension and the same arm position steady. Gently land on your toes at the same time and lower yourselves again in squat position, `ready to make another jump. Do this for 15 to 20 reps.

A NEW WAY TO INJECT MORE ROMANCE

Couple’s workouts are a great way to spend more time together, while becoming a fit couple. More importantly, they can significantly enhance the romance in your relationship, and keep the spark of love burning – as you both burn more calories together.

PBS Kicks off Black History Month with Docuseries: Gospel music - African American Sacred Music

This past summer, PBS and WETA announced the premier of Gospel, a four-hour docu-series that explores the history of Black spirituality through sermon and song from Harvard scholar and documentarian Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Feb. 12 to 13, 2024. The series will premiere on Feb. 12 and 13, 2024, with a special companion concert premiering on Feb. 9.

The PBS concert special will feature the biggest names in gospel music and the biggest stars from pop music R&B, and beyond. The concert will be recorded in Los Angeles in front of a live audience, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 

Gospel music is a form of African American sacred music that began to take form in the early 20th century. Although gospel is a form of Black sacred music, all Black sacred music is not gospel. Other examples of Black sacred music forms that play a role in the eventual development of gospel are hymns and anthems, lined hymns, and chorale singing.

The precursors to gospel music are the spirituals which represented the merging of Christian beliefs with the needs of the enslaved and the music traditions of Africa. After slavery was finally abolished, the pioneering Fisk Jubilee singers carried the message of the Spirituals to all four corners of the earth. Initially created as an extracurricular activity for students at Fisk University, a Nashville school for former slaves that opened in 1866, a group of 14 male and female students set out on tour in 1871 to raise money for the financially struggling institution.

Taking the words and heartfelt emotion of the spirituals and setting them to arrangements more fitting to the classical stage than the slave cabin, the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ initial seven years of touring netted the group rave reviews in Europe and America and raised over $150,000 to save the school. As time went on, the group sharpened its act and reduced its size to a traveling group of four men.

Beginning in the early 1900s, churches, colleges, social clubs and even factories created their own “Jubilee Quartets.” Specializing in tight harmonies and a cappella performance styles, Jubilee singing became one of the first and most lasting trends in African American sacred music.

The new docu-series will likely not pay much attention to Los Angeles as an important center of gospel music, but PBS SoCal has provided content on this very subject matter.

In San Pedro, the spirituals became a kind of currency in cultural exchange when the San Pedro YMCA and San Pedro High School would invite local Jubilee singers to perform, starting around 1920. A decade later, Olivia and Arthur Eskridge, Black San Pedro residents, formed the San Pedro Community Chorus featuring more than 50 vocalists, pulling singers from Mount Sinai Baptist Church and Black congregations in Long Beach. The chorus competed with other choruses throughout the city, winning first place and the right to perform at the Hollywood Bowl under the direction of Elmer C. Bartlett, a highly acclaimed choir director and organist who received several awards in the course of his career including first prize for directing the Los Angeles African Methodist Church, or AME’s choir at a 1926 choir competition at the Hollywood Bowl. By 1940, he had moved to Elgin, Illinois. He continued to direct choirs and play the organ for various AME churches.

Olivia Eskridge, who migrated to San Pedro in 1923 with her husband, Arthur, from Chattanooga, Tennessee used the opportunity to create space for Black excellence from San Pedro and beyond, using the San Pedro Community Choir as a kind of ambassador to the community. The choir regularly performed throughout the community, including the church halls of San Pedro Methodist  Church, the San Pedro High School, Leland Elementary School and the YMCA. 

In Gospel, Gates interviews dozens of clergymen, singers, and scholars about their connection to the music that has transcended its origins and now spreads “the good news” throughout the world. Among the interviewees are singer/actress Dionne Warwick, U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, Rev. Otis Moss III, and professor Michael Eric Dyson. The docuseries also features awe-inspiring musical performances of gospel favorites  Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus, Total Praise, and others by The Belle Singers, Cory Henry, Celisse and culture-shaking performers. 

This isn’t the first time PBS has featured a series that examined Black spiritual expression. The last time this happened, Gospel series producers and directors produced The Black Church. For centuries, the sacred sounds of Gospel music and Black preaching have testified to God’s goodness and grace while embracing the rhythms and riffs of blues, jazz and hip-hop. 

“I’m so grateful to have been able to work again with the incredible team of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Stacey L. Holman, and Shayla Harris,” executive producer Dyllan McGee said in a released statement. “They’ve created yet another impactful and important series that invites audiences to enjoy and celebrate the sounds of Gospel.”

Throughout four hours, Gospel looks at the history of Black religious music and preaching, showcasing the symbiotic relationship of words and songs present in any Black church. The series examines the origin of Black gospel music, which blended the sacred spirituals with the blues tradition and soared to new heights during the Great Migration. This music served as an outlet for the anger and frustration of living as a Black person in America, which remains true today. The series also explores the evolution of preaching styles over time, and the impact of class, gender, cultural innovations, and consumer technologies that shaped the development of gospel since its conception.

• |