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Most people hit a million dollars in net worth (excluding their house) and immediately start thinking about upgrading the wrong things: nicer car, bigger house, better vacations. Those aren’t bad—I really like those things—but there are eight upgrades you should make first, before chasing anything else.
After working with hundreds of people at this exact net worth level, I can tell you the upgrades that protect that first million and turn it into three or five or even 10 million aren’t visible; most people can’t see them. No posts or videos are made about them, but they are the difference between someone whose wealth is compounding for decades and someone who leaks money for years without even realizing it.
I’m going to walk you through eight areas to upgrade in your planning once you’ve crossed that million-dollar mark. Every item on this list changes specifically at a million dollars, where the stakes get higher, the complexity increases, and the cost of not upgrading becomes very, very real.
Upgrade #1: Moving from Compartmentalized to Coordinated
The single biggest thing we find when folks first meet with us is that they’re very compartmentalized. Everything’s fragmented; there’s no coordination happening across their plan, if there even is a plan.
They’ve got a team starting to form: a CPA, an insurance person, an investment person, maybe an attorney who designed their estate plan. They have some of the right people and pieces in place, but none of these pieces are talking.
This is where their financial picture needs to change: they need to get every major domain in their planning talking to one another. Equity in their business, tax planning, retirement planning, investment management, estate planning, and insurance all need to talk to one another, with the client’s goals at the center. Your goals are the compass; they should drive all the decisions. Once we get all of those pieces coordinated and talking to each other, we can accomplish a lot.
Upgrade #2: Tax Strategy Over Tax Filing
Taxes. Everyone hates them; everyone’s got to do them. But we must shift from a tax filing approach to a tax planning approach.
You’ve probably hired a CPA to do your taxes, or maybe you’re doing them yourself through tax software, but that CPA or that software is not there to give you tax advice or help you think about how to save on your taxes. Their job is to file an accurate tax return.
While this may have worked for you before, now you need year-round tax strategy. You need a fall tax planning meeting. You need different tax strategies stress-tested for consequences and benefits now and in the future. That’s where modeling comes in. There is so much more to managing and saving on taxes than just filing a return, and at this million-dollar-plus mark, that becomes very, very, very important.
Upgrade #3: Right Money, Right Account
Your money needs an intentional place to live. Often when clients come to us, we find that they’ve made a lot of contributions to a retirement account, they may have started saving some money in the bank, and they’ve built an investment account. But none of these contributions have been made with a strategic approach to which money, and how much, should go into which account. At this stage of the game, that can be costly.
There’s a permanency to investing that shows up in two major areas: rate of return and taxes. If you get both of those wrong, you could be making a six-figuremistake—or more. Many clients come to us because they want to optimize their taxes. As we start looking under the hood of their balance sheet and how they’re invested, it becomes clear their accounts and investments weren’t thoughtfully designed. Maybe cash has just been sitting in the bank earning nothing; maybe they own too many bonds in their 401(k) or IRA; maybe it’s something else. Whatever the issue we uncover, it always points back to a lack of intentional planning, failing to put the right money into the right account.
When these symptoms show up, we address them with job description–based investing. We ask: what is the job description for these dollars in this account? Answering that question lets us optimize where everything is placed, so the permanency of investing is felt positively instead of creating drag.
Upgrade #4: Shifting from Accumulation to Optimization
You’ve done what is probably the hardest part: getting to the first million and beyond. But this “set it and forget it” methodology is problematic because of what we covered under Upgrade #3, which is the permanency of investing without strategically putting the right money in the right accounts.
One common pitfall of the “set it and forget it” methodology is failing to optimize with accounts like Roth. Most people go with pre-tax, then later, when it comes time to withdraw, wish they had gone with Roth. Many folks don’t consider expense ratios across their investments; these don’t show up on statements, so often the person investing has no clue. Another common issue clients coming to us face is tax drag across their investments because they didn’t think strategically about Upgrade #3: right money, right accounts.
Perhaps the biggest gap and the best opportunity for optimization is the equity that they own on their balance sheet. This is unrelated to their investment accounts because it’s equity in the company they work for or own. Optimization is crucial here, and if done strategically, this can have an impact worth millions on their overall plan.
It’s important to shift your approach from a “set it and forget it” mindset, focused solely on accumulating and not optimizing. That was okay up to this point, but now it’s going to be very costly if you don’t begin to optimize.
Upgrade #5: Comprehensive Estate & Life Planning
This one has real consequences for the people that you care about the most.
Most people, when they hear estate plan, are thinking legal documents: wills and trusts. That’s a part of it, but you should also be asking: What about insurance? What about beneficiary designations? What about gifting? Those are all important pieces of the estate plan that are often overlooked.
Often when we meet with someone for the first time, their estate plan is limited to a will and trust that hasn’t been looked at in years and doesn’t align with what they want now; or they don’t have one, even though they know they need one. They’re resistant to meeting with an attorney, spending thousands of dollars, and then getting back a textbook in legal jargon they don’t understand. So they keep deferring it. (There’s an easier way, I promise.)
Legal docs are an important piece of this, but life insurance and disability insurance are also components that become really meaningful down the road and need to be upgraded. We commonly hear from people that they originally bought insurance from a friend or connection, and now realize they have too much insurance, the wrong type of insurance, or they’re overspending on insurance.
Another consideration is beneficiary designations, which in many cases supersede estate planning but rarely get aligned with the legal documents folks have set up. And finally, gifting: maybe some of you are reading this closer to your retirement years, and gifting has become a really big part of your estate planning.
All of these are important components of estate planning. There’s so much more to upgrade than legal docs, and that’s where full-picture financial planning is the only solution to ensuring everything is aligned.
Upgrade #6: Legal Protection & Risk Management
You’ve reached (or passed) your first million. Now you have a lot to lose. The more you own, the more you need to be thinking about legal protection.
You need to consider asset protection planning: entities to help hedge risk, the right umbrella policies. As they reach this point in their financial journey, many of the clients we talk to have begun to really care about setting up the right legal protections. They’re very aware of the consequences of not getting that dialed in.
But many don’t know where to start. They Google it, or they ask AI, but these tools overwhelm them with too many options. I’ve seen folks come to the conclusion they should just put their assets, like a boat, for example, into a trust and hope that’s going to solve it all.
That’s where full-picture planning comes in. It’s the only way to ensure full protection.
Upgrade #7: Investing in Your Health
This is where we think beyond the finances and assets to personal care.
Retirement is broken up into three phases: the go-go years, the slow-go years, and the no-go years. We don’t want to arrive in our 60s and 70s regretting that we didn’t invest in our health. Being worth 10 million bucks but going to the doctor every day is not a win.
If you’re still a young 40 or 50—or any age, really—and you’ve reached a pinnacle point of getting to a million or more in net worth, it’s okay to invest in your health. It’s okay, for instance, to see a functional medicine doctor who doesn’t take insurance and pay out of pocket. That’s an investment in your wellbeing, and that should be a part of your financial plan.
Upgrade #8: Upgrading How You Spend Your Time
This last upgrade is my favorite: upgrade how you spend your time. You’ve hit critical mass, and it’s here. You’ve done the hardest part. You’ve reached that first million bucks. Now you can earn some of your time back.
Some of you hate mowing, and you’ve been wishing someone would tell you it’s okay to pay someone to mow your lawn. That moment is finally here: It’s okay to pay someone to mow your lawn. Some of you love mowing, so you hate this example. In that case, maybe you hate cleaning your house. It’s okay to hire someone to clean your house. Whatever that chore is for you, it’s okay to outsource it now.
The reality is either you’re working and making great money, so your time is worth a lot quantifiably, or you’re retiring and your time is worth a lot because the most finite resource you have is time. Spend that on the most valuable things, not what you could have paid someone else to do.
These are the eight upgrades that you need to make once you’ve reached or crossed a million dollars in net worth. You’ve reached a turning point, and if you don’t address these eight areas, at best you’re leaving money on the table, and at worst, you’re leaving yourself open to much bigger risk. Handle these first, then you can buy the bigger house. You’ll actually be better set up to do it.