3 Money Moves You Can Make Today to Feel Wealthy, According to CFPs – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

If you’re aiming for the $1 million mark and feel like you’ve made it, it might be time to reconsider. According to a 2024 study by Northwestern Mutual, only one in three millionaires feel wealthy.

Luckily, feeling rich has less to do with the money in your bank account and more to do with your attitude toward the money you already have.

“Wealth is a relative term,” says Paul Morrone, a certified financial planner in North Haven, Connecticut. It depends on lifestyle, your specific spending needs and your sources of income, which can vary from person to person, he says. In short, your ability to feel wealthy depends on “what experiences and ideas you have about money.”

This is good news because there is a way for everyone, regardless of their budget, to increase their money confidence.

Here are three strategies from financial planners for feeling wealthy—even if you have far less than $1 million in the bank.

1. Embrace your personal financial journey

While $1 million may seem like a good-sounding number, setting a defined and achievable savings goal is the most important step you can take to feel wealthy, says Rachel Elson, CFP based in San Francisco, California.

“A round dollar amount is not the answer. Understanding your needs, your goals and your roadmap is the answer,” says Elson.

This is about letting go of a known number like $1 million and embracing your personal financial journey, she says. When goals like building an emergency fund or improving your credit score are accomplished, you can feel wealthy without having to build a huge net worth.

Because individual wealth and savings goals – if they are tailored to your specific goals – offer concrete opportunities to make your personal successes achievable. This approach focuses your mindset on maximizing what you can do with your money rather than how much money you can accumulate.

Simply trying to accumulate as much money as possible without a strategy can backfire and leave you feeling inferior to wealthier peers. “It’s like being an athlete,” Morrone says. “There will always be someone faster than you, stronger than you. There will always be someone who has more.”

2. Use the time

If you’re in your 20s and 30s, you may not have a lot of cash on hand yet. However, you have an extremely valuable asset: time. If you start saving early and invest consistently, time and compound interest can turn a relatively small amount of money into a significant sum.

In other words, you don’t need $1 million in hand today to feel wealthy – just a plan to grow your money over time.

You don’t even have to think about it, says Elson. She recommends automating your savings process through preset 401(k) contributions or setting up payroll deductions from a savings account you can’t touch.

“Anything you can do to set up a process and a system that you don’t have to think about will help you,” she says.

Even if it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of money in your budget for the future, even small contributions can have a big impact in the long run.

“Everything you do for yourself when you’re young will put you in better shape later,” says Elson. “The flexibility it gives you is really the most important thing.”

3. Work with a financial professional

Having a million dollars means nothing if you don’t know what to do with it. However, if you know exactly how much you have and what your options are, at any income level, you may find that your money goes further than you think.

“This is where a financial planner comes in,” says Elson. An advisor will typically explain to you what you have, what strategies are available to you, and how things might develop over time. Together, you can determine how best to use your resources, she says.

The greatest value financial planners can provide is keeping you informed and focused on your financial goals, says Morrone. Because financial professionals typically keep your individual strategy in mind, you can be assured that you have some flexibility in your budget, even if everything in your life doesn’t go according to plan.

At its core, financial planning is about how to best use your money toward your goals, says Elson, whether that’s buying a home, saving for retirement or feeling less anxious about money. “It’s very helpful to understand what your specific roadmap looks like,” she says.

Even if your goals seem far away, acknowledge them Small financial wins along the way can help you feel wealthy, says Morrone. These achievements can be as big as improving your credit score or as small as implementing automatic payment on a monthly bill.

Celebrating these victories on your way to greater goals will make you more likely to feel rich than “looking at a big number in the bank,” he says.

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