Frances Cook sums up the advice that would have helped her at 20 - and most of it is applicable now, or at any age, including retirement.
Everyone wants to dish advice, very few people want to take it. In this instance, I’m going to do a bit of both.
When I look back at how my money life has changed, it’s night and day. Twenty-year-old Frances felt broke, and frankly, not in control of her cash.
By seriously educating myself about my options, even getting qualified as a financial adviser, and then putting each small step into practice over the next decade, I created a very different financial life.
So if I had my time over, what would I say to reassure my younger self, and maybe make the path a little smoother? It's all advice that would have helped me then but is applicable to anyone at any age.
1. Your mindset matters as much as your salary
You can be on six figures and still feel broke, anxious, or like it’s all about to fall apart. Or you can be earning modestly and feel calm, in control, and secure. I’ve seen both of those situations in action, plenty of times.
The key is often to start with your goals, rather than the dollars themselves. What do you want out of life? What makes you happy? Then you work backwards from there, to decide how you can change your money, and make that happen.
Financial well-being isn’t just about income. It’s about your mindset, your habits, and whether your money reflects your values.
2. Your career path won’t be linear, and that’s okay
The old world of working loyally in one job, and climbing your way up the ladder, is dead and gone.
Which is a challenge, because investing in your earning power or "getting a good job" used to feel like a power move that could make all the other money goals much easier. For many, striving for a good salary was the only aspect of their finances they bothered with and the rest sort of fell into place.
But now, you might change jobs, change industries, or take time out. The key is to build a plan that includes these possibilities. The best thing you can do is keep learning, stay adaptable, and make sure your financial setup can flex with you.
Take any opportunity to build up high-value skills. Build up an emergency fund, protect your income, and back yourself when it’s time to pivot.
3. Don't wait to feel 'ready' to think about money
Getting started is often the hardest part. There are always a million life priorities, competing problems wanting your attention, and any attempt at progress can feel like it won’t be big enough.
It doesn’t matter. Start anyway. Five dollars a week into an investing account. Five dollars a week into a savings account.
It’s much harder to go from zero to something small, than it is to gradually move the goal posts to the point where your making a significant contribution each week to your future.
Forward movement means you’re more likely to gradually increase your efforts. So just start, with whatever you can manage regularly, and then increase it when you can.
Waiting to “feel rich” before you start is a trap. Your idea of "rich" will keep changing.
Start.
4. Learn how to talk about money, even if it’s awkward
The sooner you get comfortable asking questions, comparing notes, and saying the numbers out loud, the better. The silence around money doesn’t protect us, it keeps us stuck.
I’m lucky to talk to financial experts for a job, and I’ve picked up some amazing tactics by doing that. But one of my favourite budgeting tactics came from a university friend. (She recommended, instead of cutting back on everything at once, to pick a category per month, such as alcohol or new clothes, to give up entirely. It’s a great hack for saving without feeling deprived.) Realising I was being drastically underpaid came from talking to a coworker. Identifying money goals that I actually wanted to work towards came from honest conversations with my husband.
So talk to your friends. Ask how they’re negotiating salaries. Swap budgeting tips. Financial literacy isn’t just individual, it’s social.
5. The smartest thing you can do is automate
Nobody enjoys life admin, and money can be the worst version of that. I absolutely find some of the admin boring, and avoid it because of that.
Boredom kills your motivation, and gets in the way of your money goals. The problem is those money goals are what make all the other, more exciting things, possible.
Stop telling yourself off for finding it boring, and instead acknowledge it, and work with it.
Set up automatic transfers to savings and investments. In fact, automate absolutely anything that you can. It takes the decision-making off your plate and makes progress feel effortless.
I used to think I needed more willpower. Turns out, I just needed fewer choices.
6. Don’t ignore the other boring stuff
Some of the money admin can’t be automated, but instead needs you to sit down, and make a decision.
It’s often one-and-done, but still, it can feel overwhelming, so is easy to ignore.
Insurance. Wills. KiwiSaver forms. It’s easy to let this stuff slide.
But these are the guardrails that protect everything else you’re building.
At the very least, make sure you’re in the right KiwiSaver fund. Use the Sorted Fund Finder tool to check if you should be in growth or conservative. Just by changing the setting on your KiwiSaver, you could have a lot more in your pocket, without saving any more of your own money.
Take those easy wins. The longer you delay, the more money you could be missing out on.
7. Celebrate along the way
It’s easy to miss when we’re making progress. Investing can feel slow. Saving can feel like missing out on things now.
So you need to build in wins that remind you how much progress you’re making. A night out after paying off a credit card. A treat to mark a savings milestone.
Financial success shouldn’t feel like punishment. Let it feel good.
8. Keep showing up
Nobody is perfect, and nobody has self-control every day of the week. You will mess up. You will lose motivation. You will feel like you’re going backwards. So?
Money is an area where people tend to fall into very black-and-white thinking, where they believe they either succeed, or are an irredeemable failure. Yet we know that that’s not true in other areas of life.
When you fall off the wagon, shrug, and get back on. When you keep showing up, that’s where the real transformation happens.
9. Learn your patterns, build around them
You know when you're likely to overspend. You know which goals you abandon. Instead of pretending those habits don’t exist, create systems that work with them.
Use an app such as Acorns which rounds up your change on any transaction to the nearest dollar and invests it for you. Put a savings lock on the account you dip into too easily, or put your savings with a different bank so that you don’t see them and feel tempted.
The internet is full of money mindset hacks. So trick yourself, in a good way.
10. Money isn’t everything, but it touches everything
The way we talk about money can be extreme: either it’s the root of all evil, or it’s the ultimate goal.
But the truth is, money is just a tool. It buys options. It buys time. It lets you say no.
Learn to use it, and you gain power over your life.
The information in this article is general in nature and should not be read as personal financial advice.
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