Name: The WORST Mistakes In Personal Finance
Uploaded: 2026-02-28T21:37:56.000Z
Duration: 17 min 23 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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I've made so many mistakes for the last 15 to 20 years that I wish I could just go back and tell myself, don't be an idiot.

But what I can do is make sure a few of you don't run into the same mistakes that I did.

And that's what brings me to this video here.

It's from a YouTuber, Ben Felix, who I absolutely love, and

he breaks down the most common financial mistakes that are probably going to be costing you three thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime.

And I want to comment on this as soon as you hit the like button and subscribe, because I guarantee this is going to wind up saving people a lot of money.

This first mistake might be controversial and I feel a little bad saying it, but

I know that's not completely in your control.

Luck, including the family and the country that you're born into, can have a big impact.

Income inequality is a complex issue, but

it remains true that for many people, especially younger people, your human capital, your ability to earn income by working or starting a business, is your most valuable asset.

You know, this is something I didn't realize until it was way too late.

Like in the beginning of my career, I would do everything possible just to save any amount of money, regardless of how much time it took.

Like I would spend an hour trying to save $10 on something while I really just should have been using that hour to make an extra hundred dollars.

I mean, that would have taken me so much further than trying to like nickel and dime every little thing and using all of my mental energy just to save like pennies here and there.

It really made no difference whatsoever in the long run.

So my biggest piece of advice is if you can use your time to preferably make more money than save every little dollar possible, because in the long run it is going to help you out.

Investing in your human capital by getting a formal education or learning a trade can increase the amount that you expect to earn over the course of your life, which is a pretty obvious benefit, but

it can also make your income more resilient to bad economic times.

Income and education are also associated with all kinds of other important metrics, like happiness, at least up to a point, and

Number one, go and read the book Think and Grow Rich.

It is free on YouTube as an audiobook, so that costs you nothing.

Next go and read or listen to the book how to Win Friends and Influence People.

Then go and read or listen to the book Awaken the Giant within by Tony Robbins.

I promise that's going to be better than any education you could ever pay for.

And then all you have to do is learn how to be a self starter, take initiative and be self sufficient enough to to learn on your own.

If you could do that, I promise you're going to get ahead of like 90% of people out there for the cost of zero.

The next Big Mistake Is Not Saving Enough A common number that gets thrown around is 10% of your income.

The important point from that research is that if you wanted to work and save for 40 years and then live in retirement for 40 years with a 70% income replacement rate, you'd need to save a minimum of 11.28% of your income during your working years.

I gotta say, the math on this just ain't mathing.

Because if you have 40 years of working and saving to be able to retire for 40 years, that's 80 years.

Assuming you just start working and saving at the age of 18, this assumes you're going to live to the age of 98, which realistically most people are not going to live to 98.

The average lifespan is somewhere in like the mid to late 70s, which means you have to work and save for 40 years to maybe get 20 years in retirement.

And realistically this 20 years is not going to be that great because your quality of life really tends to decrease after the age of like 60, 68 to 70.

In terms of your physical ability to go and do things, this means you have to save more than 10%.

Realistically, most people need to save anywhere from 15 to 20% at a worst case scenario.

And ideally you're saving 20 to 30% of your income.

That would get you on track to be able to retire early enough to be able to still enjoy most of your life.

And if you're a crazy hyper saver, ideally you should be saving like 30 to 35% of your income.

That's just going to give you the best chance possible coming out ahead and having enough money stashed away not to have to work figuring out the exact amount you should be.

Saving really requires sitting down with a good financial planning calculator or a financial planner and mapping out your long term goals so that you can chart the path to get there.

I'm going to show you the chart, by the way, that changed my entire outlook on saving and investing.

This shows you exactly how much you need to save to be able to retire in a certain amount of years.

So if you want to retire in under 10 years, you, you probably have to save 70% of your income.

But you can also save a lot less, retire with a lot less if you know what you want to do.

This chart is absolutely gold in terms of achieving financial independence, which pretty much everyone watching I'm sure wants to hit at some point.

Not setting financial goals is another one of the biggest mistakes in personal finance.

People make wild financial decisions when they don't have at least a rough idea of where they want to end up.

It's worth thinking hard about the financial goals you want to set, which isn't always easy.

If I ask you what your financial goals are, you probably won't be able to tell me.

Even if you think you can, it's weird to think about.

Hey look, I know I'm usually a bit jokey in these videos, but

in all seriousness, anytime someone sets a financial goal, it's the same thing.

It's make more money, spend less, invest more consistently, yada yada yada.

But there is one thing that literally determines whether or not you could even enjoy those things, and

For the longest time I made excuses for myself.

Like maybe I just got a bad night of sleep and I feel a little tired, a little fatigued, I got a little brain fog and I chalked it up to like, maybe I'm just a bit stressed out.

Last year Function Health reached out because they wanted me to do blood work.

And I said yes because I've been putting it off and I wanted to get it done anyway.

And when I got my results, I had no idea that I had high cholesterol and some markers that suggested I should follow up on my thyroid.

Thankfully though, after making a few adjustments and taking some over the counter supplements, I legitimately feel completely better.

And none of that would have been possible without our sponsor, Function Health.

For those unaware, Function gives you access to more than 100 biomarkers, including things like cardiovascular health, inflammation, metabolic health, hormones, and

And what I really liked about this is that it wasn't just a one off snapshot and that follow up testing was included so that you could track trends and see how your decisions are actually impacting your body over time.

In fact, when I did my second follow up, I I was able to reduce my cholesterol substantially.

Seeing these changes happen firsthand was truly eye opening.

All because of dietary changes, sleep consistency and a few other things that I otherwise just would have had no clue on.

On top of that, I'm just going to say it.

I get super weirded out by having my blood drawn.

Like it's not something I would ever want to do.

But lab visits are really quick and easy.

They have more than 2,000 locations across the United States and the membership is only $365 a year or about a dollar a day.

So if you want to take ownership of your health the same way you take ownership finances, the link is down below in the description.

Or you could scan the QR code on the screen to sign up and get started today.

Again, that link is down below or the QR code on the screen.

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The WORST Mistakes In Personal Finance

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