Like many Australians, Bridget, 26, finds money challenging. She knows it's important and wants to get better at managing it, but she doesn't know where to start.

Bridget has finished her degree, works two part-time jobs, and feels like it's time she organised her financial life.

"When my birthday rolled around this year, I started to realise that I'm not 21 anymore: at some point, I'm going to have to start paying off my university fees and … I'm going to want to buy a house," she says.

But there's other things to think about, too. On top of all of her day-to-day expenses, Bridget's mum and her boyfriend live overseas, and she wants to be able to visit them occasionally.

"It all gets a bit overwhelming. I don't know when on earth I'll be able to do all of those things [and] I'd like to start [planning ahead] now," she says.

For Bridget, and the rest of us, "getting better with money" starts with changing habits. And as any ex-smoker will tell you, that's not easy.

So what can we do to help us change our money habits for good?

Find what motivates you

Our habits are deeply ingrained, hard to change and easy to fall back on.

In one study, researchers from the UK asked a group of 96 people to choose a behaviour they'd like to make into a habit, like running for 15 minutes before dinner or drinking a bottle of water with lunch.

They found it took more than two months on average for the behaviour to become habitual and automatic.

The lesson here is if we want to make lasting change, we need to be able to persevere through the moments when we feel like giving up.

To do that we need to be clear about our "intrinsic motivation", says Barbara Mullan, associate professor in psychology at Curtin University.

"If you're wanting to lose weight because your doctor said you should, or you're wanting to save money because your parents are nagging you, then it's less likely to lead to lasting behaviour change than if it was something you wanted to do for you," she says.

We asked Bridget to think about her motivation for change, and she identified something that was important to her.

"Getting to India each year is important to me because my relationship is important. I want to find an effective way of budgeting this trip into my year so that I can prioritise my relationship while keeping up with everything else," she says.

If you're struggling to find your motivation here's a question to help you get started from Dr Mullan: Think about where you'd like to be in five years. What could you change now that would help you end up there?

It might be that you'd like to pay off debt, go back to university or — like Bridget — be able to travel to see loved ones.

Having this sense of "why" will help you stay on track when things get tough.

You might even want to create a visual reminder, Dr Mullan says.

If you are saving for a trip overseas, for instance, having a photo of the destination on the fridge could be a useful reminder to help you stay the course.

The humble fridge can be great at helping to maintain your motivation. ( Unsplash )

Setting goals you can achieve

When Bridget started thinking about her financial goals, it quickly became complicated. Some of the goals, like getting better at understanding her finances, had to do with personal development.

Others were more practical: like getting a good full-time job. She also would like to own a house one day and be comfortable in retirement, but these goals seem far away.

When it comes to setting goals, it's important they are achievable, says Sean Young, an associate professor at the University of California Irvine who has written a book about building habits that last.

It's like running a marathon, Dr Young explains. You can't turn up on the day without any preparation and expect to run 42 kilometres.

"For budgeting or anything else, if you don't train for it — and start out small — then it's going to be very difficult to follow through," he says.

Dr Young developed a model for setting goals he calls the stepladder. It's about breaking down goals into small, achievable chunks.

To start with, think about your long-term "dreams": aspirations that would typically take three months or more to achieve. It might be becoming debt-free, or saving enough for a house deposit.

The next step is breaking it down into smaller "goals", which take between a month and three month to complete. If you're saving for a house deposit, one goal could be to "save 10 per cent of my income next month".

Once that's done, have a think about what "steps" you can take this week to help you achieve those one-to-three-month "goals". It might be something like "cut up my credit card", "check my super" or "find a better savings account".

It can help to use a table like this:

When it comes to changing your behaviour, it helps to break things down to small, achievable steps. ( Sean Young/ABC Life: Nathan Nankervis )

"On a day-to-day basis, we want to come up with the steps," Dr Young says.

"As a starting point, create a calendar for today or this week. [Ask yourself,] 'How are you going to save and spend money today?' We really need to break things up into steps that are that small."

Think about the small "steps": practical things you can do that can help you get where you want to be. ( Pexels/Rawpixel )

How Bridget set up her money goals

When you're using the model yourself, it helps to work through the steps and goals for each "dream" you have, says Dr Young. (And don't forget to write down your motivation, like Bridget did.)

It might be that you have one table for saving for retirement, one for an upcoming holiday, and one for saving for a new car.

You might find that working toward one "dream" helps you reach the others, but sometimes you'll have to prioritise.

"Maybe buying the house is really the dream we want to focus on, and we want to stay on that path," Dr Young says.

In Bridget's case, the priority is having enough money to travel to see her family — so that's what she's focusing on.

We asked her to try out Dr Young's model. Here's what she came up with:

Dream: Save to travel to India

Goal: Start budgeting to prepare for my trip Step: Start tracking my expenses Step: List longer-term expenses and budget for them Step: Set my priorities for before and after the trip

Goal: Save a month's worth of expenses for when I return Step: Look at my expenses and identify savings opportunities Step: Reduce temptation to spend needlessly by planning grocery trips and meals Step: Freeze my buy-now, pay-later account



Goal: Enjoy my time in India without blowing the bank Step: Create a basic travel budget Step: Research travel guides for inexpensive activities near where I'm staying Step: Have a plan for what to do if an unexpected expense comes up



The great thing about this framework is that can work with just about any goal, however big or small.

In an upcoming article, we're going to look at the next steps to changing your money habits, starting with rearranging your environment.