"January, month of empty pockets! Let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead," said the French novelist Sidonie Gabrielle Colette.
But does January have to be such an ordeal? Yes, it's a month of endless penny-pinching, made worse by the various chocolate/booze/fun-of-any-kind bans, but it's not all bad.
We asked our HuffPost UK Lifestyle Twitter followers for their take on why we should stop month-shaming January:
If you'd like to get behind HuffPost UK Lifestyle's campaign to redefine January as a time for wellbeing, growth and happiness - rather than detox, restriction and subtraction - please tweet this using the hashtag #SayNoToJan.