Most Important Financial Decisions You Will Make In Your Life (Ranked)

We are the outcome of our choices. One day, you'll look back on your life, and you'll realize it's the decisions you've made up until now that made you rich or poor. So, here are the most important financial decisions you will make in your life.

Welcome to Alux, the place where future billionaires come to get inspired. Starting off today at number 10: your personal car. Now statistically, your car will be the second biggest liability you'll purchase in your life. We'll talk about the first one in a second. Most people crumble under consumer debt. Not only are you losing money every year owning that car, but someone else is charging you interest on that privilege. Unless you're Ubering in it, your car is costing you money: gas, maintenance, insurance, and it's not putting any of that in your pocket.

Now, before you start typing away in the comment section about how some cars actually appreciate in value, pipe down before you hurt your fingers, okay? Your 2015 Toyota Camry ain't a Ferrari GTO. You need a car for convenience, but nobody needs a really expensive car. The difference between what you need and what you get is the important financial decision. Understanding this point is what makes you smarter with money.

Number 9: your education. Now, when we say education, we mean your real value add in the market. Sure, there's still a case to be made for traditional education in academic fields like being a teacher, a lawyer, or a doctor. In almost every other industry though, education means apprenticeships, courses, classes, mentorships, that kind of thing. The reason why this is a bigger financial decision than your car is because it dramatically impacts your lifelong earning power.

Now, this might sound kind of unreal to you, but it is a fact: bachelor degree holders in the US earn, on average, $1.2 million more in their lifetime than those who just have a high school diploma. They earn 86% more, which translates to around $4,500 more every year.

Number 8: your house. Owning a home is a stepping stone of wealth, both from a financial affluence perspective and the emotional security that comes with it. That said, and look, people do not like hearing this: your home is not an asset, okay? It's a liability. It costs you money to live in it; it doesn't put money in your pocket. It's a common mistake financially uneducated people make when they say, "But I'm saving $1,500 a month that I used to pay in rent, so it's actually making me money." But it isn't, okay?

What it's doing is helping you to build real wealth instead of making somebody else wealthy. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis titled "The Impact of Home Ownership on Wealth Accumulation" found that homeowners accumulate 44 times more wealth over time compared to renters. This is mainly due to home equity and forced savings. Renters tend to burn through all their cash. The only way your home becomes an asset is if you move out and someone else rents it from you, which usually happens once you buy your second home. Until then, it's a liability.

The purchase of a house is the largest one-time purchase the average person will make in their life, and we're only at number eight on this list.

Number 7: where you live. Location is not just geography, okay? It's a strategy for wealth creation and quality of life. Certain locations pay more, cost more, and have more opportunities than others. Historically, people never traveled further than like 60 miles from where they were born. You'd make friends there, you'd find your partner there, you'd buy a house there, and monetize whatever opportunities were around.

How many of your middle school and high school friends are still living in the same city or town you grew up in? The majority, right? An academic study by The Brookings Institution found that just by moving to a metropolitan city alone, a person increases their income by at least 50% compared to them staying in smaller towns. Where you live determines the schools your children will go to, the friends they'll make, and what your health will be like when you're older. Be very careful when choosing where you live.

Number 6: how much of your income you're able to invest and over what period of time. If you've been subscribed to our channel for a while, you know the saying: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time was yesterday, and the third best time is right now." Why? Well, because you want to take advantage of the laws of compounding. The sooner you start, the more compounding will contribute to your well-being.

We've broken down on our Channel almost all the ways a person can build wealth, and out of all of them, there's nothing that takes less effort than compound investments. And here's the ultimate example: if on the day your child is born, you invest $7,000 in the S&P 500, which is the index that tracks the American economy, well, by the time your child is ready for retirement, they will have amassed over $1 million in fortune without ever having to do anything.

People have this delusional impression that they can somehow beat the market or they know what's best for their money until you look at the numbers. The only way to use time in your favor is to start early and be aggressive. Most of you watching this video don't have a savings problem; you have an earnings problem. Once you take control of your earnings, you're able to increase what percentage of your yearly income you're able to invest. Poor people invest 0% of their income; rich people invest over 90% of their income on a yearly basis. Where you fall on that spectrum is up to you.

Number 5: if you're going to be an employee or an employer. Employees have a wealth ceiling; entrepreneurs don't. So, let's talk money. If you want to get rich out of any option this planet has to offer, starting a business has by far the highest probability to make you rich. As of 2024, one in six people starts a business globally. According to the Economic Journal, the average entrepreneur has twice the net worth of an employee at the end of their lives.

It might be hard to believe, but one in 128 people is a millionaire today. Yes, that's in US Dollars, and yes, that number is global. And if you don't believe us, according to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report, there are at least 62.5 million millionaires in the world right now out of a population of about 8 billion, and 96% of them are first-generation rich, meaning they acquired wealth by building a business or through investments, not inheritance or being born rich.

The statistics have never been more in your favor, so there's only one question left for you to ask yourself: aren't you tired of building up companies that you don't own? If you are, well, we built a tool that will help you to make that transition: a tool that shares with you everything the rich know that you don't. It's time to fix that. Go to alux.com/app right now and download our app. It's completely free to download, and you can start yourself a free trial. You won't pay anything for the first 7 days, and there's more than enough value for you to extract.

We believe that you can get anything you want out of life, but let's get you rich first. That's why over 200,000 people have downloaded it so far, and why millions trust us to provide clarity, focus, and consistency on a daily basis. This is the only app out there built exclusively for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and high achievers, so go to alux.com/app right now. This moment might be one of those big decisions you make in your life.

Okay, let's get back to the list. Number 4 on our list of the most important financial decisions you'll make is how many kids you'll have and when. Because the truth is kids are hella expensive, okay? Having kids is a lifelong financial commitment. The USDA's annual report, "The Cost of Raising a Child," says the average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 exceeds $233,000, and that is excluding college expenses. Kids have a direct financial impact on your career choices, your housing, your savings, investments, and your appetite for risk. Not to mention that when you have kids is like another video in and of itself.

If you're looking to make that number on the screen go as high as you can possibly get it, well then maybe you shouldn't have kids. But if you're looking to actually be rich in life, having kids is one of the greatest treasures you'll ever get. It's up to you to see what kind of riches you want.

So, we're closing into the top three on this list. What could be more impactful than how many kids?

Number 3: the industry you're in. Now, in the world, there are elevators going up, and there are elevators going down. If your elevator is going down, it doesn't matter how good at your job you are. If you're selling VCRs, newspapers, walkmans, or black and white TVs, you're pushing against a present that has made you obsolete. On the other hand, if you're in tech, healthcare, and renewable energy, you're getting pushed forward by an ever-growing trend.

We're on the verge of mass adoption of AI. We're currently two to three models away from almost all office jobs going away. Here's a simple rule: to check if you can work remotely, that means your job can be outsourced, and if your job can be outsourced, it can and will eventually be replaced by AI. The 1% of performers in your industry will survive because they will learn to use these new tools to do the job of 20 people all by themselves. They'll get paid two, three, four times what they currently make and will happily sacrifice those who are no longer profitable.

The biggest moment right now is the fact that the cost of intelligence is going down rapidly toward zero. What you can execute is officially way more valuable than what you know, so pick your elevator carefully.

Number 2: how much debt you have and how you use it. There's good debt and bad debt, right? You know this. Bad debt makes you poor; good debt makes you rich. Student loan for a social studies degree? That is bad debt. Borrowing money to buy a hot dog stand and sell hot dogs? Good debt. Good debt pays for itself and then some. Good debt is money that has a return higher than the interest you pay on that debt. Bad debt is basically the modern equivalent of slavery.

And before you try to cancel us over that, think about it. Someone else gets the fruits of your labor, and you will not be free from those chains until you give the money back and whatever interest they see fit. Debt is a tool, and only a handful of people are able to use it properly. Almost everyone else gets burned, enriching other people's lives.

Okay, are you ready for the number one decision?

All right, number one: picking the right partner. Yeah, okay, the right partner can make or break you. Their function, among many things, is to be a multiplier of whatever you do. They can be the wind in your sails or keep you from ever being great. They can make your life worth living, or they can rob you of the best years of your life. Financial Freedom begins at home because money flows where peace resides.

Too many people are sabotaged by partners they chose to settle for who don't even share the same vision or values. Knowing that both of you are working together toward the same end goal allows you to divide and conquer the day-to-day, the month-to-month, and year-to-year responsibilities in a way that dramatically accelerates your progress. Everything you'll do in life will be a roller coaster. Life will go up; life will go down.

And in those moments, having someone to share the success with and someone who has your back pushing you to get back up is crucial. That's why you have to learn to read people. You have to share your vision with them and see if they're able to see it too, and then go for that ride together. 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, you'll have your answer if you pick the right one.

And since we're on the topic of partners, why do you think that so many people settle for partners that end up holding them back in life? Anyway, let us know in the comments.

And since you stuck with us until the very end, here is your well-deserved bonus. Now, if we were to add one or two more incredibly important financial decisions, it would be not paying your taxes or the quality of your financial advice. Look, nobody likes paying taxes, okay? But it's the cost you have to pay to be able to play the game. You can't win the game if you don't play it.

And don't get us wrong, the game is actually winnable. You don't have to do anything illegal, anything crazy, or assume any sort of life-altering risk. You're living in the most prosperous time in human history, okay? Five years from today, your entire life could look completely different and filled with abundance. There's no reason to risk everything because wealth is so readily available to anyone who's willing to work for it.

It takes, on average, 7 years to get rich if you're smart; it's less than that if you're kind of dumb but willing to push at it. It might take you 10 years, but the odds of success, the amount of resources, tools, and valuable advice available to you is unprecedented. With the Alux app, we're on a mission to create 1,000 new millionaires.

And since we've launched, several members of our community have crossed that threshold. We know what it's like to want something and to not have the funds necessary to get started. So here's what we're going to do: If you scan this secret QR code on screen right now, you'll get a 50% discount on our yearly subscription to the app. So instead of $1.99, you'll pay only $99 for an entire year.

Give yourself this chance and see what your life ends up looking like if for once in your life you took it seriously and chose yourself. We'll see you on the inside. But remember, you rise or fall to the level of your mentor, so choose the right ones and you will be rich. Choose the wrong ones, and even the little you do have will be taken away from you. If you're one of the few people for which this list resonated deeply with and you know in your heart there's no way you're dying broke, write the word never in the comments. Let's see how many of you vow to never allow your family to struggle.