I qualified as an accountant knowing more about corporation tax than I did about my own current account. I could depreciate a fixed asset in my sleep and had never once looked at what my pension was invested in. That gap took me years to close, and closing it changed more than any pay rise did.
The textbook version is not the useful version
Financial literacy, as it’s usually taught, is a list of definitions. Compound interest, diversification, tax wrappers. All true, all forgettable. What actually moved the needle for me was much smaller and much more boring: knowing, to the pound, what came in and what went out each month. Everything else is downstream of that one habit.
Three things that would have saved me years
Automate the boring decisions. The money I never saw was the money I actually saved. A standing order the day after payday does more than any amount of willpower.
Start the pension conversation early. Not because of the returns — because of the habit. Contributing 5% at 22 barely registers in your take-home, and by the time it matters you’ve stopped noticing it’s gone.
Understand your own marginal rate. Most of the “clever” money decisions people agonise over are rounding errors next to simply knowing how the next pound you earn — or save — is taxed.
The honest bit
None of this is complicated. That’s rather the point, and also the trap: because it’s simple, we assume it’s optional, and we put it off. If I could send one message back to 22, it wouldn’t be a stock tip. It would be: pay attention early, and let time do the heavy lifting.
Who's writing
I'm a senior manager at a UK accountancy firm, with a particular interest in construction and inheritance tax — and, off the clock, a parent of three under three. Carried Forward is where I write about money, work, and the decisions that shape both, in plain English and without the jargon.