I spent the last three years of my life researching money and wealth.

During that time, I developed and battle-tested my own set of money principles, mindsets, tips, guardrails, and tools that helped me build a life that feels truly abundant.

In today’s piece, I want to share 26 money rules I’m following to live a wealthy life in 2026 and beyond…

1. No unforced errors.

There’s a concept in tennis that amateur tennis is a Loser’s Game: 80% of points are lost on unforced errors. You win by avoiding errors and waiting for your opponent to make errors. The truth is that most games in life are Loser’s Games. The sum of consistent, ordinary performances adds up to something extraordinary.

You can get pretty damn far by just avoiding unforced errors: Silly impulse purchases, avoidable debt, emotional investing, neglected responsibilities. Slow down, think clearly, and protect yourself from…yourself. There’s no opponent hitting magnificent shots, so there’s no reason for you to hit the ball into the net.

2. Never allow self-worth to be dictated by net worth.

The moment your identity becomes tied to your financial status, you hand your emotional sovereignty to external forces. Markets fluctuate. Seasons change. Businesses rise and fall. Your sense of worth must be anchored in something deeper: Character, values, relationships, interests, service, etc.

Money is a tool, it should never be the foundation of who you are.

3. Track financial progress like an athlete tracks performance progress.

My most important life learning of the last decade is that you can’t improve what you don’t track. Use a financial tracking and management tool to get a clear picture to build from.

Lots of options out there, but my wife and I have used and loved ​​Origin​​ since our son was born in 2022. Its latest version has an AI financial advisor that operates like your personal CFO. Highly recommend it (and recently invested as well!).

4. Increase your Margin of Freedom.

Your ​Margin of Freedom​ is the buffer you intentionally create between your reality and your expectations. Expectations are your single greatest financial liability. Your expectations for what you need to be happy will steadily increase if you don’t keep an eye on them. The changes are subtle enough that you won’t notice them in the days, but they’ll have a dramatic impact in the years.

You manage financial expectations by keeping your lifestyle well-below your means, creating slack in the system, and never matching an economic leap forward with a lifestyle one.

5. Focus on Value, Impact, & Service > Money.

Money is a lagging indicator of value created, impact, and service. The people who do the best financially are usually the ones who obsess over solving real problems, creating real impact, or genuinely helping others. The worst decisions I’ve ever made were when I reversed this equation.

Don’t chase the dollars. Create the value and the money will chase you.

6. Treat income as the leverage point, not investments.

Most people obsess over investment returns while ignoring the primary leverage point staring them in the face: their earning power. The return on improving your skills, expanding your scope, building new earning streams, or stepping into higher-impact roles dwarfs the difference between a 6% or 8% market return.

Getting an extra 2% return on your $100k investment account is $2,000. That same energy deployed into increasing your earnings could have a far more dramatic financial impact. Especially early in your life, your human capital is your most valuable asset. Invest in it relentlessly. The returns will show up everywhere.

7. Spend more for quality, not for brand.

Sometimes the cheap option is the most expensive. When purchasing products for their utility, always invest a bit more and opt for quality. They’ll last longer and create fewer headaches. Cheap may sound good right now, but you get what you pay for. It’s just buy now, pay later (with interest).

8. Always fade the trends and external expectations.

I recently had a conversation with a young woman thinking of stretching to buy her first home. When I pressed on why, she said she had just gotten engaged and that it seemed like this was the next obvious step.

The world is full of these silent scripts about what you should buy, achieve, or own by certain ages. Most of them are complete nonsense. Don’t buy a home, a car, or a lifestyle because a cultural timeline told you it’s the right time. Make the decision when it aligns with your values, your finances, and your season of life.

Your life is not a race with anyone else. There are no timelines. You get to create your own.

9. Debt is a tool, not the enemy, but use it sparingly.

Debt can amplify your growth or accelerate your downfall. The distinction is your discipline. Never use debt to live a life you can’t truly afford.

A simple rule I follow: Never finance a luxury material purchase if you can’t buy it twice over in cash. I think the single worst unforced error in personal finance is using debt to buy a depreciating asset (fancy cars, boats, etc.) that you can’t actually afford. If you want the thing, that’s fine, but make a rule that you won’t take on debt to buy it unless you can afford to buy it twice in cash. It’s the best guardrail against using debt to live far beyond your means.

10. Follow a 24-hour Rule for non-essential purchases above a certain threshold.

This reduces impulse purchases and improves saving and investing rates. If you still want to buy the thing after 24 hours, go for it.

11. Remember that investments require time, not just money.

When you make an investment, you’re putting both your money and your time into it as an input. There are some investments that require money and no time (index funds) and some that require money and a lot of time (active multi-family real estate).

Make sure you consider both money and time inputs when evaluating the return profile of an opportunity.

12. Remember that returns come in many forms beyond money.

Early in my career, I started making angel investments in early stage technology companies. On paper, it didn’t make a lot of sense: I didn’t have much excess capital to do it with and I knew that the likely scenario was most of the startups would fail. But what they lacked in financial returns, they made up for in non-financial returns in the form of access, networks, and learning.

In other words, I knew that the returns on those investments were about more than just money. Always consider that.

13. Never think twice about investments in yourself.

There are a lot of things that look like expenses but are better regarded as investments in yourself: Fitness, quality food, books, personal development, mental health, etc. The ROI on these investments is significant. You’ll have more energy, feel better, and show up better in the world for all of your personal and professional endeavors.

14. Never use money to optimize the life out of your life.

When you start making more money, an entire menu of options materializes to reduce life's minor frictions. You can hire a personal chef, a full time cleaner, a staff, a driver. But sometimes that friction was what created meaning—and the obsessive removal of friction does more harm than good.

Cherish the meaningful friction in your life. The friction that makes you slow down and embrace the ordinary.

15. Create a monthly financial check-in with your partner.

Money trouble rarely comes from math. It comes from misalignment. Alignment with your partner about money is a must for a successful relationship. A monthly financial check-in creates transparency, trust, and shared direction.

Focus on values. What matters this month? What doesn’t? A relationship with financial clarity is a relationship with stability.

16. Focus on expanding your savings rate.

The gap between your cash inflows and outflows is the critical asset in your journey to financial independence. Even small percentage increases have an outsized long-term impact when you consider the way compounding works its magic.

Live simply now to live wonderfully later.

17. Work towards a 12 month emergency fund.

It may seem excessive, but we tend to ignore the value of peace of mind when thinking about our money. Trust me: It’s worth its weight in gold (and maybe not for the reason you think).

Beyond the actual safety cushion, knowing you have that security allows you to see and capitalize on exciting opportunities when they come. What you give up in financial return on that cash you make up for 10x from the clarity and vision.

18. Run quarterly disaster simulations to be prepared for the unknown.

Your willingness to imagine bad times during good times is what allows you to safely navigate them. What if you lost your job? What if you had a major healthcare expense?

Failure to imagine the bad is the surest way to be crippled by it.

19. Don’t waste energy on small games (unless they bring you joy).

Bestselling financial author Ramit Sethi says people ask $3 questions (can I buy this coffee?) when what truly matters are $30,000 questions (how can I earn twice as much?). I see this all the time in my friends. They spend countless hours thinking about optimizing credit card points when they could be thinking about how to get promoted three times in the next year.

My rule is that unless the small game brings you joy (some people love the game of credit card points, and joy is its own return!), skip them entirely.

20. Use the Bought Status Test.

Before you buy something, ask yourself: Would I buy that thing if I couldn't tell anyone about it? It's an important way to cut through the noise when considering a material purchase. It reveals how often you're simply living for the benefit of others, for extrinsic validation. And unfortunately, no one is that impressed by your purchases.

21. Consider a barbell approach to your investments.

A barbell has weights on the ends with nothing in between. A barbell investment approach would have the vast majority of your investments on the safe, simple, and steady side with the remainder having a high-risk, high-reward profile. The safe, stable stuff might be market tracking index funds, bonds, and cash, while the higher risk stuff might be things like startups, crypto, etc.

The goal is that you get some exposure to the high rewards of the risky stuff, but without taking on too much risk because it’s a small portion of your overall financial pie.

22. Ruthlessly eliminate complexity.

Complex financial lives are fragile financial lives. Accounts everywhere, investments you don’t understand, obligations you can’t track. This is how people lose control. Simplicity compounds. Automate what can be automated, consolidate where you can consolidate, and reduce unnecessary friction.

The simpler the system, the more likely you are to stay the course.

23. Automate the payment of recurring expenses that are below threshold.

When you ruthlessly eliminate the cognitive burden of small, unimportant tasks that can be easily automated, you free up that headspace for executing on bigger opportunities and end up earning more.

24. Conduct a quarterly audit of recurring expenses.

If you are automating payment, you need to regularly audit. I've found hundreds of dollars in monthly burn through random subscriptions that I never use and didn't know I had. Use your financial tracking tool (like ​​Origin​​) to find and eliminate these. It takes 15 minutes and has an immediate payback.

25. Tip generously whenever you’re able to.

Be frugal with yourself and generous with others. Generosity creates significantly more happiness than consumption. It compounds.

As a side benefit, when you tip generously, people go out of their way to help you, which always makes your life easier in the long run.

26. Use money as a tool for more meaningful forms of wealth.

Perhaps this isn’t surprising (as I literally ​wrote the book on it​), but I believe the best uses of money are those that create one of four things in your life: Time, experiences with people you love, purpose, or health.

Above a certain level, money is best viewed as a tool to create those other things, not a goal in and of itself.

Make 2026 Your Wealthiest Year Yet

“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” - Henry David Thoreau

As you head into 2026, remember that true wealth isn’t a number on a screen. It’s a life you live by design.

It’s built, not found, through a set of small, intentional rules you follow every single day.

Read these 26 rules. Reflect on them. Adopt the ones that resonate with you.

Your wealthy life may be enabled by money, but in the end, it will be defined by everything else.

P.S. If you enjoyed this piece, go deeper on these ideas in my NYT bestselling book. It’s been recommended by everyone from Apple CEO Tim Cook to Mel Robbins and Andrew Huberman. Join 400,000+ others who are reading it around the world.

Order the Book Today!