Positioned to Succeed
Keeping your New Year's resolution is so much easier in Austin, says new report
No matter if you vowed to eat less, exercise more, or grow your savings in 2017, your location has a say in how successful you might end up being. One reason why most of us break our New Year's resolutions by mid-February is that we're simply not positioned to succeed. Unless you live in Austin, that is.
WalletHub took five common resolution categories — weight loss and fitness, financial, education and employment, relationships and family, and bad habits — and determined their rankings for the 150 largest U.S. cities. Combining those five areas resulted in the personal finance website's list of the best and worst cities for keeping your New Year's resolutions.
Not only is Austin ranked ninth overall, it's No. 5 for people looking to improve their lives through education and employment goals. WalletHub looked at stats such as public school system ratings, high school dropout rates, median annual income, job opportunities and security, and the quality of local universities when scoring that category.
Obviously Austin did well, but it racked up extra credit for tying with Lincoln, Nebraska, and Sioux Falls, North Dakota, for lowest unemployment rate.
Your chances of actually becoming "the new you" this year are also good if you live in Plano, which came in at No. 5 overall. That's much better than Houston's No. 34, Dallas' No. 40, and San Antonio's No. 44, but ultimately not as good as Salt Lake City, Utah, which took top honors and was followed by San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona.
But let's all be encouraging to those living in Detroit, which hit nearly rock-bottom in every category to end up in last place. There's always 2018.