The Best Personal Finance Tips of All Time, According to 35 Top Experts

Trying to make the most of personal finance tips all? You are in the right place. Below we break it down in plain English, with practical tips you can actually use.

Key Takeaways

• From automating your savings to having hard conversations in the car, Diane Harris breaks down the personal finance tips that matter most.
• We live in an age of information overload.
• You can get a personal finance tip from TikTok, a Substack, a podcast, your 401(k) provider, or your Aunt Phyllis at Thanksgiving.

From automating your savings to having hard conversations in the car, Diane Harris breaks down the personal finance tips that matter most.

We live in an age of information overload. You can get a personal finance tip from TikTok, a Substack, a podcast, your 401(k) provider, or your Aunt Phyllis at Thanksgiving. And Aunt Phyllis might actually be who you turn to the most because, according to a recent Gallup survey, Americans are still most likely to rely on friends and family for financial guidance, surpassing even financial advisors. Which tells us something: we are all still searching for someone we trust to cut through the noise and tell us what really matters.

That’s exactly what Diane Harris, Deputy Editor of Kiplinger Personal Finance , and the first and only woman to ever serve as Editor of Money Magazine , set out to do. For Kiplinger’s April cover package, “The Best Money Advice of All Time,” Diane gathered 35 of the most trusted voices in personal finance and asked them one question: Of all the advice you’ve ever given or received, what’s the most impactful personal finance tip you’d pass along?

Jean Chatzky sat down with Diane on the HerMoney podcast to dig in. Here’s what we learned.

Automate Everything… And Stop Relying on Willpower

One of Diane’s favorite personal finance tips in the package comes from financial therapist Megan McCoy, and it’s all about removing friction from the equation entirely. “So numerous pieces of advice rely on motivation,” Harris explains, “and then they make people feel like they failed if they can’t do it, like it’s some sort of personal failure. Instead, it should just be the default. You set it up because it’s human nature, inertia takes over, and we do whatever’s easiest. So make it simple for yourself to do the right thing.”

In practice, that means automating your savings before the money ever hits your checking account. “The only way I’ve been able to save for a variety of things is by automating it,” Harris says. “I set it up, and then I don’t think about it.”

Jean Chatzky’s Advice: Talk About Money in the Car 

Perhaps the most talked-about personal finance tip in the entire Kiplinger newsroom wasn’t about investing or saving at all. It was Jean’s mother’s advice: have the key conversations with your kids in the car.

“I think she gave it frequently, several times at least,” Chatzky recalls. “Her thinking , and it was pretty brilliant , was that you can be driving so you don’t have to look at your kids, but you know, you’ve got this captive audience. And so that’s where I talked with my kids when they were teens, especially about difficult things like drugs and drinking and sex and money.”

The Most Key Personal Finance Tip? Don’t Rely on Anyone Else

When Jean asked Diane what her own contribution to the package would be, her answer was deeply personal. “My mother was a homemaker who relied on my father for alimony,” Harris shares. “He was a healthy guy, and he died unexpectedly, very suddenly. And as a result, I supported my mother for the rest of her life.”

The lesson: “Do not rely on another person for money. You have to be able to make your own way and take care of yourself. It’s a variation of the cheesy ‘a man is not a plan’ advice, but it’s really about that. You are your own best advocate, in money as in life.”

Harris also offers this: “Always have a plan B. Life is gonna do a number on you at some point, probably at several points, even if you do everything with your money the right way. It’s not about just an emergency fund. It’s really thinking about what could happen and having a mental plan for it. When something hits you, you feel like, okay, I can do this. This is going to be challenging, but I will get through it.”

You can find Kiplinger’s full “Best Money Advice of All Time” package at kiplinger.com.

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Final Thoughts

Before you check out, double-check personal finance tips all against current offers and any coupons you can stack. Small habits like this add up to real savings over a year.

Originally published at savingswitch.com.