I spent a Tuesday morning staring at my bank app and wondering why a person who negotiates every grocery order still somehow lives paycheck to paycheck-ish. It’s the money version of my old coffee-maker problem: I know how it works, I just keep operating it wrong.
So I went to the people whose job it is to fix money. Three financial professionals told me the one thing each of them wishes they’d known when they were younger. None of it was “invest in index funds.” All of it was about how you relate to money. Here’s the honest version, and where it lands for a regular household like mine.
1. Stop inheriting your money beliefs (and start questioning them)
Kelley Keehn, CEO of Money Wise Institute, told a story I’ll be thinking about for a while. In her 20s she bought a Mercedes sports car she couldn’t really afford — while doing fine financially, just not fine enough to keep up with the wealthy clients she worked around. “I was doing well financially, but not well enough to try to keep up with my wealthy clients. And quite frankly, I had no idea what I was doing,” she said.
Here’s the part that hit me: her reluctance to negotiate came from where she grew up. A single mom working as a waitress to support three kids taught her, implicitly, that poor people don’t haggle. So as a young adult, Keehn assumed negotiating wasn’t for her — right up until she worked at a bank and realized even her wealthiest clients were constantly negotiating better terms.
“It really took me decades to feel comfortable to ask and negotiate and I still have to flex those muscles,” she said.
She also grew up with a sharp contrast: a mom who cried about money, and uncles who had total swagger with it. “I was juxtaposed growing up that my mom would cry and have all this stress about money because we didn’t have any. And then my uncles had this confidence and this swagger,” she said. A lot of her 20s mistakes, she admits, came from trying to copy that swagger without the means behind it.
What I’d do differently: write down three money rules you’ve never questioned. Chances are at least one of them isn’t yours — it was handed to you, and you never checked if it fits your life. That check is free, and it’s the cheapest audit there is.
2. Find your middle ground between saving and spending
Ingrid Kucera, a financial advisor at Assante Wealth Management, put it plainly: her clients tend to land in one of two camps — spenders or savers — and most of them need a middle ground. She wished she’d known that when she was younger.
“You want to enjoy your time now and later, and if you spend it all now then there’s nothing later. And if you save it all now then you have everything later, but you might look back and wish that you had done a couple more things when you had the time,” she said.
As a rule-oriented person, she had to learn to apply her own advice. For most people, finding that balance could mean saving 15% to 20% of annual income. She also says: figure out what your actual goals are, then make sure your financial plan is aligned with them.
“A lot of it does come from using a financial plan, putting in all their information and working with the numbers that we have because you’re able to project what things will look like in the future if they keep doing what they’re doing or if things change,” she said.
That last bit is the part most of us skip. We guess. We vibe. We look at last month’s spending and nod at it like it’s a plan. The pros project. You don’t need a fancy spreadsheet — you need to write the numbers down and stare at where they’re heading.
What I’d do differently: I’d stop treating “saving” as whatever’s left after the cart. I’d set a target in that 15–20% range, make it automatic, and let the rest of my budget flex around it instead of the other way round.
3. Trust the boring repetition
Nancy Grouni, a certified financial planner at Objective Financial Partners, said she wishes she’d understood when she was younger that wealth, in most cases, is built gradually. She learned it by watching clients’ progress over the years.
“In general, most people dramatically overestimate what they can accomplish in one year and underestimate what they can accomplish in 20 years,” she said.
Most substantial wealth, she says, comes from what she calls “boring repetition” — consistent saving, regular investing, managing costs and taxes, and avoiding the big dumb mistakes. It also means staying invested through the rough cycles, when every instinct says to bail.
“I found over time that some of the most successful investors are often not the smartest people in the room to be honest, they’re the people who develop a sound plan and stick with it long enough for compounding to work its magic,” she said.
That’s the one that stung, honestly. I’d always assumed I was being clever by timing things. Turns out the people winning the long game are usually just the ones who didn’t quit.
Is it worth your time?
Worth it — all three lessons are free to start. None of them require a new app, a subscription, or a course. The only cost is sitting down with a pen and being honest about your own numbers. If that sounds like a lot, that’s exactly the point. It’s the cheapest financial planning you’ll ever do, and the pros who run the show say it’s the one thing they’d actually change if they could.
One honest caveat before you go set up auto-saves: nothing here is professional financial advice — it’s three pros’ lived lessons, shared for inspiration. If your situation has moving parts (debt, a business, a recent inheritance), talk to an advisor who can look at your actual numbers. I’d do it that way.
FAQ
Do I have to be a saver type to make this work? No. The point of the middle ground is that you don’t have to be an extreme in either direction. The 15–20% target is a starting conversation, not a rule — adjust it to your life and keep the plan honest.
What if I already have debt? The pros’ lessons still apply, but the order of operations changes. Paying down high-interest debt first usually beats adding to a savings target, so check that box before you layer on more.
How long until I see results? Per Grouni, most of us overestimate what one year can do and underestimate twenty. The honest answer is: you’ll see small things soon, and the real payoff shows up way later than you want it to.
A note from Dana
I keep a list of “small money habits worth more than big money tips” and these three just made it. If you only do one thing from this, start with the free audit: write down the money beliefs you’ve never questioned. Then come back and tell me which one you dropped. I’ll be checking the comments before my second coffee.