10 Overrated Money Moves
Personal finance advice has become a religion of rigid rules and absolute commandments. Armchair experts giving their advice across the span of social media platforms.
"Never invest before you have six months of expenses saved!"
"Always pay off debt before investing!"
"You need a financial advisor!"
While these mantras feel reassuring, they often do more harm than good by muddying the waters. I have read the books and studied the data. I have walked, and continue to walk, the path to financial independence. Unlike the armchair experts, I became a self-made millionaire at age 30. I say this not to brag, but as a case study of success relative to the norm.
Financial success isn’t a zero-sum game. My methods are laid out on The Financial Cocktail, so you can accomplish what I have and beyond. I’d like to share 10 overrated money moves so you can focus on what really matters.
1. Emergency Funds of 6+ Months
The Gospel: Build 6-12 months of expenses in a savings account before even thinking about investing. This is the safety net to your financial foundation, and without it, you're financially irresponsible.
Reality Check: The opportunity cost of this advice is inhibitory to wealth building. A starter emergency fund should be at the top of their prioritization list, but not 6-12 months’ worth.
An emergency fund should be stored in a capital preserving investment such as a money market account or high-yield savings account. These accounts return more than a standard savings or checking account, but less than a broad market index fund.
Allocating too much towards an emergency fund minimizes work done elsewhere. It doesn’t allow you to pay off high interest debt, fill retirement accounts, or any number of money moves that accelerate your net worth.
The average family of 4 in the United States lives on $6,000 per month. If you have significant student loan payments, your cost of living may increase $2,500 per month. New grads should be doing their best to stunt their expenses until their financial foundation is established. For most CRNAs early in their financial journey, $10,000 to $30,000 will be more than enough to cover a basic emergency.
I coach many CRNAs with over six-figures sitting in a savings account. Put this money to work! Create forced scarcity by investing these funds. I don’t want a false feeling of security when your net worth is $250,000 below $0.
The 6-month rule emerged from an era of single-income households, pension jobs, and limited credit access. Today's economy is far more dynamic featuring dual incomes, credit lines, 401k loans, and more flexible employment. A $10,000 emergency fund plus available credit often provides the same security as hoarding six months of expenses.
Context matters more than rigid rules. A W-2 employee with excellent health insurance needs less than a freelance contractor. Someone with wealthy parents who'd help in emergencies needs less than someone without family support. A person with liquid assets needs less cash than someone whose net worth is tied up in their home.
What Actually Works: W2 employees with reasonable job security should save one month's expenses and independent contractors (1099) should save three months’ expenses. Funds are for true emergencies only.
Increase your emergency fund to 3-6 months expenses after eliminating high interest debt. The security of your job and the size of your emergency fund are inversely related. If you really need cash, your bridge account is always accessible. Keep those dollars working in long-term investments!
2. Dollar-Cost Averaging vs Lump Sum Investing
The Gospel: Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) reduces risk by spreading purchases over time. It's safer than lump sum investing and protects you from buying at market peaks.
Reality Check: Mathematics doesn't care about your feelings. Vanguard's comprehensive study found that lump sum investing outperformed dollar-cost averaging roughly 68% of the time across different markets and time periods. The reason is simple, markets trend upward over time, so earlier investment typically captures more growth.
DCA is often procrastination disguised as strategy. It feels safer because it protects against the regret of buying right before a crash, but it exposes you to the more likely scenario of missing months or years of gains while you slowly deploy capital.
The psychological comfort of DCA comes at a measurable cost. If you have $100,000 to invest and DCA over 12 months instead of investing immediately, you're betting that markets will be lower on average during those 12 months than they are today. Historically, that's been a losing bet about two-thirds of the time.
What Actually Works: If you have a lump sum, invest it immediately in a diversified portfolio appropriate for your risk tolerance. $100,000 or less, invest immediately. Inherit 10% of your net worth or less, invest immediately.
If you receive a massive windfall…life changing money…something like 7-figures+ that is greater than 50% of your net worth, DCA over 3-6 months with data supporting the shortest time frame.
If you're afraid of timing, acknowledge that this fear is costing you expected returns. Save DCA for ongoing contributions from your monthly cashflow, where it's not a choice but simply how money becomes available. I currently DCA into VTI/VUG and crypto every Monday, but I don’t have a lump sum of cash sitting on the sidelines that isn’t allocated towards taxes.
3. Paying Off Low-Interest Debt Before Investing
The Gospel: Dave Ramsey followers claim debt is always bad. Pay off all debt before investing because you can't predict market returns, but debt payments are guaranteed.
Reality Check: This advice treats all debt as equal when it emphatically isn't. This is a mathematical vs psychological discussion. A 3% mortgage is not the same as a 24% credit card. Opportunity cost is real, and it's expensive.
Here is a single slide used in a case study from the TFC Online Course, chapter “3.9 Long-Term Debt.” This case study involves purchasing a $525,000 house with a 30-year, fixed rate mortgage. One mortgage at 6%, the other 3%. The debate is to pay an extra $500 per month towards the mortgage or invest in a broad market fund like VTI.
Assumptions:
Housing Appreciation – 4% Annually
VTI Return – 10% Annually
Considerations not assumed, but both favor investing:
Investing in tax-advantaged accounts
Mortgage interest deduction
The mathematical advantage of investing is clear, especially with low interest debt. This shows a $350,000 difference by doing the following:
Paying the minimum mortgage
Paying almost double for PMI
Paying far more interest
Investing the $500 monthly cashflow in an index fund
I realize this is dependent on market returns. Historical data is what I have to work with, so that’s what I apply. Consider the acceptable margins as you will.
The psychological argument for debt payoff is valid but expensive. Yes, eliminating your mortgage feels wonderful and provides guaranteed peace of mind. But that peace of mind costs hundreds of thousands in potential wealth building. For many people, the better psychological approach is finding a middle ground: maybe paying one extra mortgage payment per year while investing the rest.
What Actually Works: Aggressively pay off high interest prior to investing. Pay minimums on debt below 5-6% interest rates and invest the difference, especially mortgage debt. For moderate-interest debt around 3-5%, consider your personal risk tolerance and split the difference. Hold low interest debt of 0-3%.
4. Active Fund Management and Stock Picking
The Gospel: Fund managers with a team of investors, extensive research, and market expertise can consistently outperform the market. Individual stock picking based on research and analysis beats passive investing.
Reality Check: The evidence against active management is overwhelming and persistent. I first read this in John Bogle’s, “Little Book of Common Sense investing: The Only Way to Guarantee your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns.” He said something like 90% of actively managed funds underperform the market. And don’t think you can pick the 10% destined to outperform. And if you do, they likely won’t outperform every year or every decade. You won’t know when to switch funds.
S&P Global’s 2023 report showed that over 15 years, 88% of large-cap funds, 90% of mid-cap funds, and 96% of small-cap funds failed to beat their benchmark indexes. This isn't a temporary phenomenon, the mathematical reality of a mostly efficient market with high fees.
Even legendary investors like Warren Buffett acknowledge this reality. Buffett famously won a million-dollar bet that an S&P 500 index fund would outperform a collection of hedge funds over ten years. Do I need more examples as to why self-managing with index funds is superior?
The illusion of control makes active management seductive. Picking stocks feels smart and engaged, while passive investing feels lazy. That’s why I buy more single stocks than I should.
But markets are ruthlessly efficient at incorporating available information into prices. Your edge over thousands of professional analysts with superior resources and full-time focus is essentially zero.
Fund marketing exploits survivorship bias and recency bias. They highlight their best performers while quietly closing underperforming funds. Jim Cramer at The Motley Fool is infamous for this. They show you the fund that beat the market over the past five years while not mentioning their ten other funds that lagged. And conveniently failing to mention their significant fees.
What Actually Works: Build your core portfolio around low-cost, passively managed index funds. Any broad-based total stock market, growth, or international fund will do. I use a blend of VTI (Total U.S. stock market) and VUG (Growth fund).
If you want to scratch the stock-picking itch, do it. Limit it to 5-10% of your portfolio as play money. It’s gambling. Ensure your index fund investments are adequate to achieve your FI or retirement timeline.
I buy way too many individual stocks, but I recognize it as entertainment, not an investment strategy. My Monday DCA always goes into an index fund. Those dollars don’t stop.
5. Gold is a Hedge to Market Downturns
The Gospel: Gold protects against inflation and market crashes. Alternative assets like REITs, commodities, and collectibles provide essential diversification.
Reality Check: Gold's inflation-hedging reputation doesn't match historical reality. From 1980 to 2020, gold returned about 4.2% annually while inflation averaged 2.9%—barely beating inflation and significantly trailing stocks. There have been periods where gold has performed extremely well such as the 1970s and 2025, but it continues to significantly lag U.S. equities over the decades.
Gold provides no income, has storage costs (physical gold), and its price depends entirely on sentiment and speculation. During the 2008 financial crisis, gold initially fell along with everything else before recovering later. It's not the crisis hedge people imagine.
Annualized Returns 1985-2024
U.S. Large Cap – 8.6%
U.S. Small Cap – 7.6%
International Stocks – 6.8%
REITs – 4.8%
U.S. Junk Bonds – 4.1%
Gold – 4%
Cash – LOL
Alternative assets often sound sophisticated but add complexity without proportional benefit. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are fine but mostly move with the broader market. They have their downsides, notably tax implications. I also avoid commodities as they have poor long-term returns and high volatility. Collectibles such as sports cards and art require expertise and have huge transaction costs.
TFC Recommendation: Keep it simple. Index funds in whatever flavor you prefer will ultimately serve you well. Embrace the volatility and hold on for the ride.
View alternate investments the same as single stocks. Limit them to 5-10% of your portfolio. I invest in cryptocurrencies as an alternate investment. Again, I’m not using the funds I need to achieve FI on my desired timeline.
Recognize that complexity often reduces returns after fees and taxes rather than improving them.
6. Complex Tax Optimization Strategies
The Gospel: Sophisticated tax strategies like backdoor Roth conversions, mega-backdoor Roths, tax-loss harvesting, and asset location optimization are essential for building wealth.
Reality Check: These buzzwords are used as clickbait. I cover them in the blog and TFC Online Course, but I make it very clear that tax optimization is not a fundamental pillar of wealth building.
The 1099 CRNA community spends way to much time focusing on tax optimization, specifically business expenses. Providing a service doesn’t come with too many deductions. Clear expenses such as health insurance premiums, retirement contributions, education costs, travel, lodging, and licensure are straight forward. Pick the low hanging fruit and move on.
Take care of the basics. Utilize tax-advantaged accounts that meet your needs. The big 3 being the 401(k), IRA, and HSA. We can discuss traditional vs Roth contributions all day. What’s more important is that you are utilizing what is available to you.
Mrs. TFC and I utilize mega-backdoor conversions. I don’t know many CRNAs putting $70,000 (or $140,000 in our case) into their Solo401(k). They just don’t have the cashflow and that’s okay. The MBD Roth isn’t the sole factor in propelling you to FI.
Tax-loss harvesting sounds sophisticated but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. The tax savings are typically small, the process requires ongoing attention, and it can create wash sale violations if you're not careful.
Complex strategies also create ongoing maintenance requirements. You need to track basis, remember conversion dates, coordinate multiple accounts, and understand changing tax laws. This complexity often leads to mistakes that cost more than the optimization saves.
What Actually Works: Focus on the easy wins. Maximize the use of your 401(k), IRA, and HSA if possible. Contractors should take all “necessary and ordinary” business related expenses without worrying about getting too fancy. It isn’t worth spending $1 to save $0.40. Then put stacks of cash in to a brokerage account.
These simple steps capture 80% of available tax benefits with 20% of the complexity. Add next-level strategies only after you've maxed out simple ones and have substantial assets. An example would be having multiple side business in addition to anesthesia.
7. Real Estate as Superior Investment
The Gospel: Real estate always goes up. They're not making more land. Property provides inflation protection, tax benefits, and leverage opportunities that stocks can't match.
Reality Check: Through a financial lens, a personal residence is a terrible investment. I have a few posts about the sunken costs such as closing costs, property taxes, insurance, increased utility costs, maintenance, and capital expenditures. Sure, there are advantaged, but they are rarely financial.
From the investor lens, real estate's returns match or exceed stock market returns over long periods, but with significantly higher costs, complexity, and concentration risk. The long-term appreciation of real estate is 4%.
The illusion of real estate outperformance comes from leverage and survivorship bias. When you buy a $400,000 house with $80,000 down and it appreciates to $500,000, you've made $100,000 on your $80,000—a 125% return. But you've also paid the sunken costs previously discussed interest, taxes, maintenance, etc.
Real estate requires active management, even with property managers taking 10% off the top. This time and effort takes away from your day job. Desirable if you earn $15 per hour. Not efficient for a CRNA earning $250+ per hour as a locum.
Tenants, repairs, vacancies, and market knowledge demands are real costs rarely factored into return calculations. A leaky roof doesn't care about your diversification strategy.
Geographic concentration risk is enormous. Your entire real estate investment might be in one city or neighborhood, subject to local economic changes, natural disasters, or policy changes. Stock investors can own thousands of companies across dozens of countries with a single fund.
Transaction costs in real estate are brutal. Buying and selling typically costs 8-10% of the property value in commissions, fees, and taxes. This means real estate needs to outperform stocks by nearly 1% annually just to break even on transaction costs alone.
What Actually Works: Own your primary residence if you want stability and plan to stay put for many years, not as an investment.
Consider real estate investing only if you enjoy active management and have substantial other assets for diversification. I don’t doubt the combination of purchasing at a discount, leverage, and value-add create amazing cash-on-cash returns. Probably far better than what an index fund creates. I’ll look to dabble here if I cut back on anesthesia hours.
Success in this domain requires knowledge, capital, and effort. Take off the rose-colored glasses and see this as what it is – A second job. Many of the tax advantages of real estate can only be achieved with professional status. Great for a CRNA spouse, not so much for a full time CRNA.
For most people, REITs or syndicates provide real estate exposure without the hassles.
8. Financial Advisors for Straightforward Situations
The Gospel: Everyone needs professional financial advice to navigate the complex world of investing, tax planning, and retirement preparation.
Reality Check: The typical 1% annual fee charged by financial advisors costs more than most people realize. On a $500,000 portfolio, that's $5,000 annually—$200,000 over 20 years before accounting for lost compound growth. The total cost approaches $500,000 over a 30-year retirement.
Here is the simulation I ran for myself based on my savings trajectory. $4M.
Yep, $4M that I could save by implementing a buy-and-hold strategy with VTI.
Financial advisors speak with many SRNA classes. Their approach is almost predatory. Scaring smart people by convincing them to hire a professional for 1% AUM. Because you don’t have XYZ degree, you should hire someone to take care of it for you. LOL. They don’t mention the impact of their fee and the fee of their proprietary investment products.
For straightforward situations—young professionals with steady incomes, simple goals, and decades until retirement—this cost rarely justifies itself. The advice applicable for decades often boils down to:
Pay off high interest debt
Maximize 401k match
Contribute to retirement accounts
Buy index funds
Increase savings rates
It doesn’t matter if you are investing $10,000, $1M, or $10M, the advice is the same. You can learn to do all of this by reading The Financial Cocktail.
Robo-advisors provide portfolio management, rebalancing, and basic tax-loss harvesting for 0.25-0.50% annually. For most investors, this captures the primary value of professional management at a fraction of the cost. Better than AUM advisors, but not necessary.
Financial advisors add genuine value in complex situations such as substantial wealth requiring estate planning, complex family situations, or behavioral coaching for people who would otherwise make costly mistakes. But the industry has convinced people, especially vulnerable smart CRNAs and SRNAs, that straightforward investing is more complex than it actually is.
Here is a post about financial advisors if you are set on working with one. The fiduciary standard helps but doesn't eliminate conflicts of interest. Fee-only advisors still have incentives to recommend complex strategies that justify their existence rather than simple solutions that might not require ongoing advice.
What Actually Works: Self-manage your retirement accounts and investments until you truly need advice. A fee-only advisor comes into play with a windfall income and estate planning. More investible capital does not dictate a more complicated situation.
9. Micro-Expense Tracking
The Gospel: Track every expense to understand where your money goes. Use apps to categorize purchases and identify spending leaks. You can't manage what you don't measure.
Reality Check: Obsessive expense tracking often focuses energy on the wrong problems. The person meticulously tracking their $7 lattes while ignoring their $800 car payment has misallocated their optimization efforts.
Most people's financial problems are obvious with one glance at a spreadsheet of assets and liabilities. The $200,000 student debt at 7% interest is a problem. The $65,000 vehicle debt at 9% is a problem. The $25,000 of credit card debt at 24% interest is a problem.
Don’t worry about spending $50 per week at Starbucks when you should be worrying about the $2,500 student loan payment and $800 vehicle payment. You don't need an app to tell you where the problem lies. Implement systems to change behavior, not more detailed tracking of behavior they want to change.
Tracking expenses is one of the foundational principles of personal finance. After you become acutely aware of spending, it becomes second nature to monitor the important expenses and ignore the rest.
Mrs. TFC and I haven’t had a written budget in years. No need. We meet our investing goal every month, don’t carry debt, and still have cash remaining at the end of the month. We spend 30 minutes every month updating our net worth statement that tracks our assets. That’s it.
Find a system that works for you. Especially as a high-income earner, focus on the income side of the equation. Smash high interest debt. Meet your financial SMART goals. Live on the rest.
If your income wasn’t so tremendously powerful, I wouldn’t be so lax about tracking.
What Actually Works: Automate savings and investments first. Track spending at a macro level -- fixed expenses, variable expenses, and savings rate. Focus optimization efforts on the largest categories.
10. Credit Score Obsession
The Gospel: Maximize your credit score through strategic credit card applications, optimal utilization ratios, and sophisticated timing of payments and account closures.
The Reality Check: Credit scores plateau in their usefulness around 750. Whether you have a 750 or 850 credit score makes virtually no difference in the interest rates you'll receive on mortgages, car loans, or credit cards. The energy spent optimizing from 750 to 800+ provides no financial benefit.
Your credit score is the reliability you will pay back debt. That’s it. It has nothing to do with net worth, only your reliability as a borrower.
Factors of a FICO credit score per cnbc.com:
Payment history (35%) – reliably pay bills
Amounts owed (30%) – credit utilization
Length of credit history (15%)
New credit (10%) – open new accounts
Credit mix (10%) – having a variety of loans
Basic responsible credit use achieves 95% of the available credit score benefits with 5% of the effort.
Credit score hacking communities promote complex strategies.
Applying for multiple cards to increase available credit
Timing payments to optimize utilization reporting dates
Keeping old cards active
Carrying debt month to month
Playing these games might improve your score by 20-50 points while providing zero real-world benefit if you're already above 740.
The credit card churning community takes this further, applying for dozens of cards annually to harvest signup bonuses. While the bonuses have value, the time investment, organizational complexity, and potential for mistakes often outweigh the benefits. It becomes a low-wage side hustle disguised as financial optimization. No one gets rich off their credit score or credit card rewards.
What Actually Works: Pay all bills on time, don’t carry a balance, keep credit utilization low, maintain old accounts, and monitor your credit report annually for errors. Once your score exceeds 740, focus your optimization energy on income and investments.
If credit is an issue, presenting your job contract or net worth will likely allow you to be granted a loan via the underwriting process. If I purchase the $525,000 house from the above example and take a $495,000 mortgage, I will be granted the loan.
Firstly, I have carried a single card since high school and have a credit score around 800. Secondly, I had a $3,000 monthly limit on the card the entire time, even after becoming a CRNA. Thirdly, if I want a mortgage for the house, I have more than $495,000 in equities that can be liquidated in a couple business days. Underwriting will go well.
The Real Financial Priorities
While people obsess over these overrated interventions, the actual drivers of financial success remain boringly simple:
Increase your income. As a CRNA, your income is your greatest wealth building tool during the wealth accumulation phase. Achieve $2M in investments and that balance begins to shift. Work overtime or take a locum assignment to shorten the timeline.
Spend significantly less than you earn. I recommend a 25-50% savings rate. I’ll preach the Moneymoon all day long because it works. Investment returns aren’t guaranteed, but I guarantee if you spend less than you bring home, you will begin to build wealth.
Invest consistently in low-cost index funds. Time in the market beats timing the market. DCA weekly or monthly. Keep your expenses and fees low.
Avoid high interest debt. You can’t out invest high interest debt. Eliminate immediately.
Automate good behaviors. Make it easy to do the right thing. Set up systems that make saving and investing automatic and emotionless rather than relying on discipline and optimization.
The personal finance industry profits from complexity and controversy. Simple advice doesn't generate clicks, sell courses, or justify ongoing fees. But simple advice works, and it frees up your mental energy for the areas of life where optimization actually matters.
Focus on the fundamentals, ignore the optimization theater, and spend your time building a life worth funding rather than endlessly tweaking the funding mechanisms. Thanks for reading!
