Book summary “Get Good with Money”: summary

Introduction

You likely feel overwhelmed by the state of your finances, carrying the heavy burden of debt, low credit scores, and an unstable savings account. Economic downturns and unexpected life events constantly threaten your sense of security, leaving you trapped in a cycle of financial anxiety. Traditional financial advice often demands perfection or focuses exclusively on accumulating narrow wealth, ignoring the complex realities of your daily life.

Tiffany Aliche argues in Get Good with Money that financial health requires reaching a state of financial wholeness instead. Financial wholeness means having a secure foundation across every area of your money life, allowing you to thrive even during traumatic times regardless of your income bracket. Achieving this wholeness requires moving through ten sequential steps that stabilize and grow your resources systematically.

The book provides a structured roadmap to transform your relationship with money from the ground up. You learn to master budgeting, build robust savings reserves, eradicate debt, and optimize your credit score. The journey continues as you expand your earning power, invest for the future, secure appropriate insurance coverage, and build lasting net worth. The process concludes with proper estate planning to protect your loved ones and secure your final legacy.

• How do you build a realistic budget that empowers rather than restricts you?
• What specific steps allow you to escape the burden of debt permanently?
• How can you leverage your credit score to unlock financial opportunities?
• What methods help you increase your income and invest like an insider?

1. Get to Know Financial Wholeness

Financial wholeness means having all aspects of your financial life working together for your benefit, regardless of your current income bracket. Unlike narrow financial freedom that focuses only on having enough passive income to stop working, financial wholeness stabilizes every area of your financial life so you can navigate and thrive even during traumatic times.

Financial wholeness stabilizes every area of your financial life so you can thrive even during traumatic times, regardless of your current income bracket.

Achieving financial wholeness requires progressing through ten sequential steps divided into stability fundamentals and wealth growth and protection. The ten steps cover budget building, saving like a squirrel, digging out of debt, scoring high on credit, learning to earn, investing like an insider, getting good with insurance, growing rich-ish by increasing net worth, picking a money team, and leaving a legacy.

The Illusion of Income

Earning a high income does not guarantee financial security if foundational pillars are missing. The author reflects that despite earning substantially more money per month as a successful business owner than she did as a preschool teacher, she felt far more anxious and insecure because she lacked proper insurance, updated retirement plans, estate planning, and professional financial advice.

The author paid off $35,000 in credit card debt and $52,000 in student loans, bought a house for $180,000, and paid off her parents' mortgage, yet experienced extreme financial fear due to trauma from the Great Recession.

The Paper Towel Person

Instead of dwelling on financial mistakes with emotional self-blame, quickly focus on finding a practical solution. The author contrasts her father's reaction of fussing over spilled stains with her mother's silent action of handing her a paper towel, applying this to financial missteps as the philosophy of being a paper towel person.

The author recalls her clumsy childhood habit of spilling staining liquids on furniture and floors and how her mother simply handed her a paper towel to clean it up instead of yelling.

Shifting Your Money Voice

Personal money habits are often inherited from childhood messaging or societal and cultural advertising pressures. Family financial trauma can lead to extreme holding of money or, conversely, overspending out of spite. Society and pop culture also push consumers to equate material possessions with status, power, and emotional connection, such as the trope of going shopping when friendships get tough.

You must shift your perspective to view money as an employee that works for you rather than seeing yourself as a servant to money. The author compares money to a screaming toddler demanding things, while you are the parent and the boss who has the authority to say no and direct funds toward savings or goals.

2. Budget Building Basics

A proper budget functions as an active empowerment tool rather than a restriction, providing a clear path to achieve major personal goals.

You define a valid budget as a formally documented and at least partially automated itemization of income, expenses, and savings. The author calls this a Say Yes plan. Relying on vague estimates creates an unstable foundation, whereas using exact financial facts establishes clarity and control over your Total Monthly Take Home Pay.

The Four Step Assessment

The initial assessment phase of budget building requires gathering income sources, listing all expenses in descriptive terms, calculating monthly costs, and subtracting spending from income.

You first document all incoming funds down to small side hustles and assistance payments on a Money-In list. Next, you list all spending choices using descriptive terms without numbers on a Money-Out list before converting those expenses into precise monthly amounts during Tears and Tissues Time. Finally, subtracting total monthly spending from total take-home pay reveals your Beginning Monthly Savings.

Analyzing Financial Issues

Tagging expenses with specific control categories reveals the root cause of financial shortages, distinguishing between fixed obligations and flexible choices.

Expenses are labeled using specific control codes:

• B for Bills with low control;
• UB for Utility Bills with medium control based on usage;
• C for Cash Expenses with high control.

Heavy spending on B and UB indicates a don't-make-enough issue, while heavy spending on C indicates a spend-too-much issue.

When the author worked as a preschool teacher, she assumed she was spending too much on herself because money was tight. However, analyzing her expenses revealed she had almost no C expenses, proving she actually had an income issue rather than a spending issue.

Corrective Actions

Addressing a financial shortfall involves cutting flexible expenses in order of control, managing utility drains, and actively building a case for a raise or picking up a light-lift side hustle.

If you have a spending problem, you scrutinize cash expenses and cut utility waste like vampire energy suckers. Unplugging vampire energy devices can reduce an electric bill by $30 a month, totaling $360 a year.

If you have an income problem, you document workplace value in a Brag Book to request a raise or take on a side job aligned with your existing skills. The author earned an extra $6,000 in one year through tutoring and babysitting while working as a teacher. This generates your New Monthly Savings.

When experiencing severe hardship known as broke-broke, essential survival needs take precedence over general debts and nonessential services. You must avoid going dark on creditors and instead contact them to discuss hardship payment plans.

Banking Structure and Automation

Separating money across multiple accounts in different types of financial institutions creates psychological clarity and introduces strategic inconvenience for savings.

You utilize three distinct institutional types:

• a brick-and-mortar bank for physical convenience;
• an Online-Only Bank for higher interest rates and delayed access that discourages impulse spending;
• a Credit Union for nonprofit member benefits and low-interest loans.

By treating a paycheck like a divided paycheck pizza, income can be automatically routed into spending, a Bills Account, emergency savings, and other Money Buckets. This automation removes human error and enforces consistent financial discipline, leaving you Pizza Rich.

3. Save Like a Squirrel

To achieve financial security, you must mimic squirrels by aggressively saving during prosperous economic times to prepare for inevitable financial winters.

Humans often spend recklessly during good times, but squirrels instinctively stockpile food for winter. Since economic recessions typically occur in the United States every 10 to 15 years, you must build reserves during a bull market to avoid scrambling for money during a bear market.

Emergency Versus Goal Savings

Savings must be split into two distinct categories to prevent confusion and accidental depletion. Emergency funds provide a cushion against income loss, while goal funds allow you to purchase specific items or fund future investments without derailing your security.

Your savings serve specific protective functions:

• emergency savings cover unexpected hardships like medical bills or job loss;
• goal funds finance intentional short-term or long-term purchases on Wealth Island.

Early in her career as a teacher earning $39,000 a year, the author saved $40,000 in three years by living an unhappily austere life. This oversaving taught her the danger of hoarding cash without purpose, especially since inflation causes prices to double roughly every 20 years.

The Noodle Budget

Calculating a Noodle Budget helps you identify the absolute minimum amount needed to survive during a financial crisis. This exercise strips away all nonessentials to reveal baseline survival expenses based on cheap staple foods.

The author had to live on her Noodle Budget for two years after losing her job during the Great Recession and dealing with a financial scam. Her friend Monica normally spends $5,000 monthly, but her Noodle Budget covers only $3,500 in bare-minimum expenses. Multiplying this by three months results in a $10,500 emergency fund goal, which Monica plans to reach in 36 months by saving $290 a month. She also aims to save $2,000 for her honeymoon over 18 months by putting aside $110 monthly.

Mindful Spending Framework

Mindful spending requires evaluating every potential purchase through a prioritized hierarchy to align your money with genuine long-term joy. You can use Budgetnista Bracelets to prompt conscious choices before you buy.

The spending hierarchy sorts your desires into distinct tiers:

• Needs that are essential for your health and safety;
• Loves that provide long-term joy over years;
• Likes that offer short-term enjoyment;
• Wants that represent fleeting impulses.

The author stopped spending $30 a week on Sunday brunches she did not truly enjoy and redirected that money into a travel savings account. This adjustment enabled bucket-list trips to more than 30 countries. You can test whether an item is a love or a like by waiting six months to see if it continues to bring you joy.

4. Dig Out of Debt

You must stop saying you are in debt. Debt is not a physical location, and thinking of it as a place can make you feel stuck there. Language shapes mindset. Treating debt as a temporary obligation rather than an inescapable environment prevents psychological paralysis and encourages action.

Being debt-free and being wealthy are completely different states, and eliminating debt requires understanding compound interest and strategic paydown methods.

The author notes that her four-year-old nephew, Roman, is completely debt-free with no car note, mortgage, or student loans, yet he is broke like most toddlers. The primary purpose of reducing debt is to free up excess capital for building long-term wealth.

Mechanics and Collections

Compound interest works against borrowers by charging interest daily on both the original principal balance and any previously accrued interest. Carrying a balance means that unpaid interest rolls over, so paying only the monthly interest charge leaves the principal untouched forever.

On a $2,000 balance with a 20% interest rate, the daily rate equals approximately 0.00054794. This results in a monthly interest charge of about $33.97.

When dealing with debt collectors, you should stay calm, take notes, request everything in writing, and demand a debt validation letter before admitting liability. Collectors are trained professionals looking for verbal admissions or partial payments that can restart the statute of limitations on old debts. Zombie debt often resurfaces from old accounts. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was passed in 1977 to protect you from abusive tactics.

Restructuring and Student Loans

High-interest credit card debt can be restructured through interest rate negotiations, balance transfers, or lower-interest personal loans. You can leverage your good payment history to request lower rates or transfer balances to 0% APR cards.

Transferring a $10,000 balance with a 20% interest rate to a card with a 3% fee results in a $300 fee. This is a sound trade when compared to over $2,000 in annual interest. Typical balance transfer fees range from 3% to 5%.

Federal student loans should never be refinanced into private loans. Doing so permanently eliminates crucial hardship protections and forgiveness options. While private loans function like standard debt without deferral options, federal loans offer income-based repayment.

Mortgage refinancing to lower payments requires calculating whether monthly savings will cover the closing costs within a reasonable timeframe. Closing costs typically range from 2% to 6% of the loan amount.

Saving $200 a month with $3,200 in closing costs requires 16 months to break even. This is well under the five-year rule of thumb.

Paydown Plans

Choose the right strategy to attack your balances:

• The Snowball Method prioritizes smallest balances for quick psychological wins.
• The Avalanche Method targets highest interest rates for maximum mathematical efficiency.

A hybrid approach often works best by starting with small debts to build momentum.

Apply unexpected financial windfalls directly to debt acceleration through immediate digital transfers. Splitting windfalls fifty-fifty between savings and debt ensures steady progress. The author found that a $50 dress was on a 50% sale at Target, and immediately transferred the unexpected $25 savings to her debt account. This creates a powerful compounding effect over time.

5. Score High Credit

Understanding your credit requires knowing three main components. A credit report functions like a high school transcript detailing your past financial history. A credit score represents the GPA calculated from those choices through an algorithm. The credit bureaus act as the teachers who supply the grades.

Understanding credit reports, scores, and bureaus allows you to optimize the five components of the FICO score and reach elite credit brackets.

Lenders rely on the FICO scoring model, which ranges from 300 to 850, to categorize borrowers from poor to exceptional.

Credit Fundamentals and Ranges

• 300 to 580 is poor.
• 580 to 669 is fair.
• 670 to 739 is good.
• 740 to 799 is very good.
• 800 to 850 is exceptional.

Aiming for 740 or higher provides access to the best interest rates comparable to a perfect 850 score.

The Five Factors

A FICO credit score is determined by five specific components with varying levels of impact on the overall calculation.

• Payment history accounts for 35 percent.
• Amounts owed or credit utilization makes up 30 percent.
• Length of credit history comprises 15 percent.
• New credit inquiries account for 10 percent.
• Credit mix accounts for 10 percent.

Payment history has the largest impact on your credit score, making checking for reporting errors crucial. Activity within the most recent 12 months heavily influences the score. Negative items fall off after 7 years, while public records like bankruptcies or tax liens take 10 years to disappear. According to Federal Trade Commission data, one in five people have an error on at least one credit report. You can dispute these errors in writing using paper mail to maintain a paper trail.

Building and Protecting Credit

Credit utilization measures the percentage of available credit limits being used. While the industry standard suggests keeping utilization under 30 percent, credit expert Netiva Heard recommends aiming for zero to 3 percent for rapid score improvement. Timing payments after the statement closing date ensures low balances are reported to bureaus.

Hard credit inquiries signal financial desperation to lenders and can temporarily lower your credit score. Soft inquiries like checking your own score do not affect credit. Hard inquiries generated when applying for new loans or store cards require permission and can impact scores for 12 months while staying on reports for two years. A 14 to 45-day window applies when shopping around for specific loans like mortgages.

The length of credit history reflects financial experience. Newer or thin files can be expanded by becoming an authorized user on a trusted person's account, utilizing a credit builder loan where payments accumulate in a savings account, or opening a secured card backed by a cash deposit. A minimum history of 6 months is required to generate a credit score.

The Jump Like Jordan method involves placing a small recurring bill like a phone or streaming subscription on a credit card, then setting an automatic payment to clear the balance in full every month after the statement closing date. This builds a consistent positive payment loop. Maintaining a diverse credit mix of revolving credit, such as credit cards, and installment credit, such as loans, helps you cross into the highest credit score brackets.

6. Learn to Earn

Increasing income should be approached through smart strategy rather than sheer exhaustion to avoid burnout while building wealth. You can achieve financial wholeness by looking for obvious income opportunities first and expanding outward intentionally.

Increasing income requires strategic moves at your primary job, skill inventory assessments, and direct ROI side hustles rather than sheer exhaustion.

Maximizing Primary Job Income

Maintaining a documented record of professional wins provides objective leverage for requesting a salary increase. By tracking workflow improvements, budget savings, and company benefits in a dedicated folder, you can use data instead of emotion to prove your monetary value to management. This Go Me! folder or Go Me! file stops management from dismissing your contributions.

An attorney representing a hospital system used her documented litigation settlements to prove she saved 10,000,000 dollars in fees and lawsuits. She successfully argued for a raise after initial pushback against a 10,000 dollars raise.

Women often hesitate to apply for roles unless meeting every requirement, whereas men apply when meeting a fraction of the criteria. You should overcome this confidence gap by applying for positions you are at least 50 percent qualified for to gain interview practice and leverage. Employers rarely lead with their best offer, so you must research compensation ranges and advocate for nonsalary benefits like flexible scheduling.

Sandy negotiated a hybrid schedule to work from home two days a week because commuting into Manhattan was a deal breaker for her.

Assessing and Monetizing Skills

Uncovering monetization potential begins with taking an inventory of daily professional and personal skills, even consulting friends for self-awareness. You often overlook your own capabilities, so listing tasks performed across various roles helps identify marketable talents without requiring complicated personality tests.

Tracy used her high organizational skills from styling the author to eventually become her publicist and manage outreach spreadsheets.

Starting a side hustle requires prioritizing direct returns on investment rather than spending money on appearance-based branding items too early. You must distinguish between looking like a business and being a business. Focus on items like raw materials that yield direct sales instead of websites or business cards.

Sarah took two cake-decorating classes to improve her decorating skills, allowing her to increase her prices and transition to full-time baking.

Putting a Number on Potential

Validating market demand using online tools prevents wasting time and resources on a dying industry or a side hustle with no paying audience. You must attach a concrete financial goal and check search trends using Google Trends before building a business to ensure consumers are actively looking for the service.

Setting a specific monthly revenue target makes a side hustle actionable and breaks down long-term financial goals into manageable daily amounts. Using challenges with specific target amounts helps maintain accountability and provides a clear operational benchmark.

Sandy runs a $500 Side-Hustle Challenge aiming for a monthly side-hustle revenue target, which breaks down to specific weekly and daily amounts:

• 500 dollars side-hustle monthly target;
• 125 dollars weekly target;
• 16 dollars daily target.

7. Invest Like an Insider

Retirement and wealth building require personifying your future self, understanding the Rule of 25, and leveraging tax-advantaged accounts through dollar cost averaging.

Retirement Math and Vehicles

Naming and personifying your future self creates psychological discipline for long-term retirement savings. You turn an abstract future date into someone you have a personal responsibility to care for today.

The author names her future retired self Wanda. She describes her as sassy and nosy, which helps keep younger Tiffany from buying a trip to Paris on credit.

Multiplying current annual expenses by 25 determines the total amount needed to retire comfortably using the 4% Rule. The 4% Rule states that a person with 25 times their annual expenses invested can safely live off 4% or less annually without running out of money.

If annual expenses are $50,000, multiplying by 25 yields $1,250,000 needed for retirement. At an 8% yield, this sum earns $100,000 annually in interest, leaving half to spend and half to reinvest.

Different retirement vehicles offer distinct tax advantages, contribution limits, and structural rules that must be strategically chosen. Accounts like 401(k)s and traditional IRAs offer pretax contributions that lower current taxable income and tax later upon withdrawal. Roth IRAs use after-tax money for tax-free withdrawals in retirement.

An employee under 50 can contribute up to $19,500 annually to a 401(k), with higher limits for combined employer and employee contributions up to $57,000.

Asset Allocation and Debt Priority

Asset allocation manages investment risk by splitting funds between stocks and bonds, with the stock percentage decreasing with age. Stocks provide growth momentum while bonds act as stable brakes. The Rule of 110 suggests subtracting your age from 110 to find the recommended percentage to allocate toward stocks versus bonds.

A 30-year-old using the Rule of 110 should allocate:

• 80 percent stock allocation;
• 20 percent bond allocation.

High-interest debt should generally be paid off before aggressive investing because the borrowing cost usually outpaces market returns. Double-digit interest rates on debt like credit cards mean you lose more in interest than you gain in the market.

Before investing for wealth building, specific financial prerequisites like emergency savings and bill management must be met. An individual needs up-to-date bills, active retirement contributions, a fully funded six-month Noodle Budget for emergencies, and zero high-interest debt.

Courtney Richardson suggests a specific allocation formula once emergency goals are met:

• 70 percent to living expenses;
• 10 percent to savings;
• 10 percent to retirement;
• 10 percent to wealth building.

Management Types and Dollar Cost Averaging

Investors can choose among DIY platforms, robo-advisors, and personal financial advisors based on cost, control, and time commitment. DIY platforms offer low fees and manual control. Robo-advisors automate portfolios using algorithms for a minor percentage fee. Personal advisors provide comprehensive guidance for up to 2% in management fees.

Consistent dollar cost averaging outperforms attempts to time the market by smoothing out price fluctuations over time. Instead of trying to guess the lowest price point to buy assets, you achieve better average results by regularly investing a fixed amount at set intervals.

An investor who contributes $80 per month into the S&P 500 starting in the year 2000 would see their total $19,200 investment grow significantly over 20 years.

8. Get Good with Insurance

You should view insurance as an essential risk management tool rather than a waste of money. Policies protect you and your loved ones against unpredictable life events like accidents, illnesses, or property damage.

Insurance acts as an essential risk management tool protecting your earning potential and assets through health, term life, disability, and umbrella policies.

Health Insurance and HSAs

A Health Savings Account (HSA) offers a triple tax advantage and serves as a powerful retirement investment vehicle if left unused for medical expenses during working years. This account is tied to a high-deductible health plan. It allows pre-tax contributions, tax-free growth, and tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses.

Funds can be invested through a brokerage account, functioning much like a retirement account while never expiring.

Life and Disability Insurance

Term life insurance is vastly superior to permanent life insurance for 99 percent of people. Permanent policies build a cash value but typically yield an average annual return of only 1.5 percent according to Consumer Reports. Nearly half of all policyholders surrender their policies within the first ten years according to the Society of Actuaries. By contrast, term life insurance covers the wealth-building years when dependents need protection most.

The author purchased a 30-year 300,000 dollar term policy at age twenty-seven for 23 dollars a month. She was able to maintain this coverage even after losing her job during the 2008-09 recession.

In late 2020, the average quote for a 1 million dollar, 30-year term policy for a healthy, nonsmoking 30-year-old woman was 40 dollars per month. A permanent policy for the same woman started at 730 dollars per month.

You should determine coverage needs using specific guidelines:

• ensure minimum coverage of 10 times to 15 times your income;
• select a 30-year policy duration if you are under 35;
• select a 20-year policy duration if you are under 45;
• select a 10-year policy duration if you are 45 or older.

Long-term disability insurance protects your greatest asset: your earning potential. Disability insurance provides income when an illness or injury prevents working. An own-occupation policy covers the inability to work your specific job specialty. This coverage is crucial for high-training professionals like physicians, compared to cheaper any-occupation policies that deny claims if any alternative job can be performed. Long-term policies typically provide 40% to 60% of your income, while the average claim lasts under three years.

Property and Casualty Protection

Property and casualty insurance protects physical assets and provides crucial liability coverage. Standard state minimum liability limits are often too low, making it necessary to secure adequate liability limits and uninsured motorist coverage. According to the Consumer Federation of America, drivers who reduced their annual mileage saved 5% to 10% on car insurance rates.

An umbrella policy provides affordable, high-limit liability protection that stacks on top of underlying home and auto policies. Because the United States is a litigious society, this policy extends liability limits far beyond standard home and auto limits. Anjali Jariwala noted getting a one-million-dollar umbrella policy for 400 dollars a year.

9. Grow Richish

Growing net worth shifts your focus toward asset ownership and home equity while assembling a qualified Money Team of professional advisors.

Net worth is calculated by simply subtracting your total liabilities from your total assets. It reflects your basic financial health rather than your income or character. Assets are what you own that put money in your pocket, while liabilities are what you owe that take money out. A positive net worth indicates you are building wealth and getting closer to financial health.

The true ultimate purpose of working is to acquire and grow assets until those owned things can eventually put you out of work. Dame Dash stated that the purpose of work is to own and eventually live off those owned things. Shifting your mindset from working solely to pay bills toward working specifically for ownership transforms financial wholeness.

A strong net worth goal must be specific, realistic, and supported by concrete action steps targeting assets or liabilities. Instead of merely wanting to make more money, a strategic goal focuses on owning slightly more or owing slightly less each year.

Sandra planned to reach a $100,000 net worth in five years through student loan paydowns, salary negotiations, home improvements, and a coaching business. Ebony targeted a $10,000 net worth increase within two and a half years.

Net Worth and Homeownership

Homeownership is a cornerstone for wealth building because home equity can dramatically increase net worth over time. The equity accumulated in a home transforms net worth. The average homeowner possesses a net worth 41 times greater than a renter due to property appreciation.

Tiffany's parents bought their childhood home for $250,000. Thirty years later, it was paid off and worth nearly $700,000.

You can enjoy luxuries and pay for liabilities by letting your assets bankroll them instead of taking on new debt. Generating income from investments, side hustles, or speaking fees and placing it in savings allows you to fund discretionary spending without hurting your net worth. Tiffany funded her trip to Santorini, Greece, by searching for a paid speaking engagement and using that fee money stored in a savings account.

Assembling Your Money Team

As your financial life grows more complex, you need to assemble a tailored Money Team of qualified professionals to guide your choices. A simple financial situation requires minimal support, whereas complex finances involving businesses and properties require specialized experts to provide personalized guidance.

Everyone needs an accountability partner, often referred to as a Dream Catcher. These individuals provide supportive, judgment-free encouragement and regular updates to help keep your financial goals on track. Tiffany's online Dream Catcher community includes 1 million members.

A Certified Financial Planner acts as the captain of your Money Team, helping coordinate your long-term financial strategy as a fiduciary. Fee-only advisors are legally bound to put your interests ahead of their own and do not earn commissions from selling financial products. Advisors typically charge about 1 percent for assets under management, and Tiffany interviewed 20 advisors before selecting Anjali as her CFP.

A Certified Public Accountant is necessary only when your tax situation becomes complex due to businesses, dependents, or multiple properties. If your financial life is simple, tax preparation software is sufficient, whereas complex filings require a CPA with a Preparer Tax Identification Number. Tiffany's accountant Carlos initially told her she needed TurboTax instead of an accountant when she was a single renting teacher.

Estate planning attorneys and insurance brokers provide specialized legal and policy protection to secure your assets and loved ones. Attorneys assist with wills, trusts, and healthcare directives, while insurance brokers represent you to vet policies across multiple companies rather than just one.

10. Leave a Legacy

Estate planning protects your loved ones and assets through wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations, completing the ten tiers of financial wholeness.

The Five Year Outlook

Looking decades ahead can cause confusion, such as picturing minor children as adults when the plan activates. A five-year outlook makes it easier to picture and protect your current goals. You should update your plan every 5 years.

Estate planning costs vary depending on your assets, complexity, and state laws. Fees can range from 2.5% to 5.0% of assets when working with professionals. Flat fees depend on whether you use online tools, DIY kits, or formal legal counsel.

Wills and Beneficiaries

Officially designated beneficiaries on your accounts supersede what is written in a will. You must review these accounts regularly. If you leave an ex-spouse on an account beneficiary form because you never updated it, the financial institution gives the funds to your ex regardless of who you name in your will.

Parents of children under the age of 18 must establish a legal guardianship plan to prevent children from becoming wards of the court. Without a designated guardianship plan, the court decides your child's fate. For separated parents, the other parent is the presumed de facto guardian unless a birth certificate proves an issue like a stay-away order.

Unmarried partners and fiancées have no automatic legal rights to an estate without a will, leaving them vulnerable to family disputes. Without a valid will, families can legally treat a lifelong partner like a casual boyfriend or girlfriend and bar them from shared homes or mourning.

Toni Moore shared a case where a gay man passed away without a will and his family kicked his surviving partner out of their shared home. She shared another case where a man died before his wedding and his family denied the fiancée any part of his estate.

Trusts and Execution

Living wills and durable powers of attorney provide crucial legal instructions for medical care and asset management during incapacitation. A living will specifies your medical treatment preferences during terminal illness or permanent unconsciousness. A durable power of attorney authorizes someone to make financial, legal, or medical decisions temporarily while you are incapacitated.

Long-term care plans specify your preferences for daily assistance. You can either buy expensive long-term care insurance with flexible rate structures or self-insure by deliberately factoring projected care costs into your retirement savings.

Trusts become active immediately upon creation and help larger estates bypass the lengthy, public probate process. While a will activates after death and goes through public probate, a trust activates immediately and keeps asset distribution private. Trusts are recommended for assets totaling $100,000 or more, and they are a must for $500,000 or more.

Drafted estate plans are legally meaningless until formally signed, executed, and funded. Many people stop before the finish line, leaving wills unsigned or failing to transfer property into their newly created trusts. Achieving 100% financial wholeness means successfully navigating 10 fundamental tiers ranging from budgeting to estate planning.

10 Key Ideas

1. Financial wholeness stabilizes every area of your money life so you can thrive even during traumatic times, regardless of your current income bracket.
2. A proper budget functions as an active empowerment tool rather than a restriction, providing a clear path to achieve major personal goals.
3. To achieve financial security, you must mimic squirrels by aggressively saving during prosperous economic times to prepare for inevitable financial winters.
4. Being debt-free and being wealthy are completely different states, and eliminating debt requires understanding compound interest and strategic paydown methods.
5. Understanding credit reports, scores, and bureaus allows you to optimize the five components of the FICO score and reach elite credit brackets.
6. Increasing income requires strategic moves at your primary job, skill inventory assessments, and direct ROI side hustles rather than sheer exhaustion.
7. Retirement and wealth building require personifying your future self, understanding the Rule of 25, and leveraging tax-advantaged accounts through dollar cost averaging.
8. Insurance acts as an essential risk management tool protecting your earning potential and assets through health, term life, disability, and umbrella policies.
9. Growing net worth shifts your focus toward asset ownership and home equity while assembling a qualified Money Team of professional advisors.
10. Estate planning protects your loved ones and assets through wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations, completing the ten tiers of financial wholeness.