Gosh I really love and appreciate your writing! These are fantastic primers and as someone newly making a high income (after years of training and barely scraping by) so beyond helpful!
Thanks so much for commenting Meghan. Welcome to the “fine” phase of your life. Breathe a sigh of relief I think you’re gonna like next week’s post. ;)
I wonder (if you'd be willing to share!) how you think about combining the psychology and math of personal finance into this order of savings as well as your public writing in general.
Balancing the psychology of money with the cold, hard math is the crux of all this, isn't it? The technically optimal path is clear, but human behavior often has other ideas. I often say to my clients, "I know the right answer here. And I think you know it too. Getting you to do it is the hard part."
I try to find the sweet spot between “efficient” and “doable.” Yes, maxing out tax-advantaged accounts before paying off low-interest debt might be mathematically ideal—but if someone hates debt so much they lose sleep over it, that matters too. So, in my work as an advisor, I start with goals and do a deeply personal goal-searching exercise well before we look at numbers.
In my public writing, where I'm basically yelling at strangers, I aim for the middle lane: clear, actionable frameworks that nudge people in the right direction while acknowledging that personal finance is, well, personal. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress. If a framework gets someone to save at all instead of freezing from indecision, that’s a win in my book.
Gosh I really love and appreciate your writing! These are fantastic primers and as someone newly making a high income (after years of training and barely scraping by) so beyond helpful!
Thanks so much for commenting Meghan. Welcome to the “fine” phase of your life. Breathe a sigh of relief I think you’re gonna like next week’s post. ;)
I am always interested in the ways people approach threading the needle between these overarching rules of thumb (that push most people in the general right direction) and communicating the inherent nuance of planning. Before I started working in the personal finance space, I really liked the easy steps to follow, that places like Personal Finance Club (https://www.personalfinanceclub.com/how-to-prioritize-your-money-the-phases-of-investing/), the White Coat Investor (https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-waterfalls-for-new-residents-and-attendings/), and this post lay out. Now, I am more wary of them.
I wonder (if you'd be willing to share!) how you think about combining the psychology and math of personal finance into this order of savings as well as your public writing in general.
Balancing the psychology of money with the cold, hard math is the crux of all this, isn't it? The technically optimal path is clear, but human behavior often has other ideas. I often say to my clients, "I know the right answer here. And I think you know it too. Getting you to do it is the hard part."
I try to find the sweet spot between “efficient” and “doable.” Yes, maxing out tax-advantaged accounts before paying off low-interest debt might be mathematically ideal—but if someone hates debt so much they lose sleep over it, that matters too. So, in my work as an advisor, I start with goals and do a deeply personal goal-searching exercise well before we look at numbers.
In my public writing, where I'm basically yelling at strangers, I aim for the middle lane: clear, actionable frameworks that nudge people in the right direction while acknowledging that personal finance is, well, personal. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress. If a framework gets someone to save at all instead of freezing from indecision, that’s a win in my book.
Love the whole "I know the right answer here. And I think you know it too."