Seven Financial Mistakes I Watched Smart People Make During My Nearly Forty Years in Corporate Finance, Part 1: Foundational Habits

Over the course of nearly forty years in corporate finance, I watched personal financial mistakes made by highly capable professionals.

These were not careless people. They were accountants, CFOs, executives, and advisors who managed organizational budgets with precision. Yet, quietly and repeatedly, they made the same personal financial mistakes, the kind that rarely appear in a performance review but compound over decades.

These are not rare mistakes. They are common, costly, and entirely avoidable.

I left corporate life at sixty-one with no debt, a paid-off home, a well-performing investment portfolio, guaranteed lifetime income through annuities, and the financial freedom to pursue a second act as a writer and consultant. None of that happened by accident. It happened because I learned, early and consistently, what not to do. The real question is not whether these lessons are available. It is whether you are applying them.