I'm a financial planner, and over 15 years I've seen my wealthiest clients have the same 3 habits

People ask CFP Malik S. Lee for the secret sauce — the commonalities he sees in his wealthiest financial-planning clients that make them successful.

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• I've been working with wealthy clients for nearly 15 years, and I've noticed a few common habits.
• It may be worth considering some of their strategies, like saving at least 25% of their income.
• They also employ a team of financial professionals, and understand how to manage risk.

I've been advising wealthy clients for nearly 15 years, and I'm often asked for the secret sauce, or the commonalities I see in my wealthiest financial-planning clients that make them successful.

Some ask simply because they are curious, while others ask because of cognitive-behavioral biases, like the bandwagon effect or herd behavior, where we believe it's safer to follow the crowd or popular opinion.

While that's not always a fact, there's some merit in evaluating what the wealthiest among us have in common and seeing how applying those behaviors or actions to your own situation could improve your chance of financial success.

Though everyone's road to financial independence can be different, I can tell you about three everyday habits some of my wealthiest clients share.

1. Their most significant yearly expense is savings

Yes, big-ticket items such as mansions and exotic cars can sometimes come with a wealthy lifestyle, but my most successful clients' biggest expense is their commitment to savings.

In fact, my most affluent clients consistently save 25% or more of their gross income annually.

Most industry pundits recommend saving about 10% to 15% of your gross income and increasing it annually or when cash flow permits. I agree with this strategy and recommend this technique to my clients quite often. If you're not putting anything in a savings account right now, 10% of your income is an excellent place to start.

But if you're looking to understand the habits of my wealthiest financial-planning clients, they almost always start with a more aggressive savings rate. When I look at my most successful clients, they've managed to maintain this savings rate even at various income levels, from those with extremely high annual earnings to retirees who don't receive earned income at all.

2. They are great at understanding and managing risk

I recently learned that Mount Everest — Earth's highest mountain above sea level — claims more lives on the descent than on the climb.

If we use this same metaphor on the topic of wealth, it goes along with my belief that more "wealth casualties" are sustained trying to maintain wealth than accumulating it. Once you obtain wealth, you have to protect it from not only bad investment decisions and market volatility, but other casualties such as overspending, longevity, inflation, and even frivolous lawsuits.

Unfortunately, protecting your wealth can sometimes come at an exorbitant cost. As certified financial planner professionals, we are taught to brace our clients for the high cost of long-term care insurance premiums. But this is only the beginning.

You might also need disability insurance to protect your income, life insurance to safeguard assets from estate taxes, and umbrella insurance for additional personal liability protection, to name just a few other protection mechanisms.

The list goes on and on, and each of these products adds an expense to maintain. But that cost could be minimal compared with the impact of actually needing some of this coverage but not having it.

3. They have a team of experts on their side

Though more and more people are tackling things themselves by using Google and YouTube when it comes to finances, my most successful clients seek help from experts. A professional wealth-building team typically consists of an attorney, a tax expert, an insurance expert, and a financial advisor or planner.

While these professionals can help you by providing expert advice and tangible action steps to follow, their true value may lie more in intangible factors, including:

• Helping you to control your emotions. No matter how wealthy you are, losing your cool can happen to the best of us. My most successful clients lean on us to help them separate those emotions and make sound financial decisions.
• Providing a clear road map when there are endless paths to explore. My most successful clients value receiving comprehensive financial plans specific to their goals and situations. They use these plans to help prioritize their goals and create cash-flow strategies that maximize savings or optimize distribution strategies. In addition, they lean on these plans to assess their risk exposure.
• Keeping up with rapidly changing financial and legal landscapes. In the field of finance, things are forever changing because of new legislation, groundbreaking research, and new products. I'd argue that since December 2017 we have had the most legislative changes our industry has ever seen. Some of those recent legislative changes include the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (enacted in December 2017), the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (enacted in December 2019), and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (passed in March 2020). These have all caused financial planners to re-evaluate — and in some cases pivot from — prior recommendations. This is only after we have made ourselves familiar with the new laws, which can take countless hours of research.

At the end of the day, my most successful clients are very consistent and committed, and they use a team of experts to accomplish their most desired financial goals.

This article was originally published in June 2020.