Unlike Football, Personal Finance Is Not A Game Of Inches

The new Baltimore Ravens NFL season started the same way it ended last year—with a gut-wrenching one-score loss to the annoyingly-popular Kansas City Chiefs. Worse yet, it was a literal matter of inches that kept the Ravens from tying or winning both games—with a goal-line fumble last season in the AFC Championship and a touchdown called back Thursday night as time expired, ruling that Isaiah Likely’s toe (toenail, really) was out of bounds.

Unfortunately, the promulgation of schtick-selling personal finance gurus and coupon-snipping money savers have cast the impression that personal financial management is, like football, a “game of inches.” They’d have us believe that the difference between financial success and failure depends on our choice to buy a latte. Nonetheless, while it’s absolutely true that the little financial decisions are worth our attention because of their inevitable accrual, it’s my observation that a much smaller number of BIGGER financial decisions we make have the BIGGEST impact on our financial future.