Watch an elite financial advisor hack his own retirement

That may mean making a lateral move that could ultimately leave you in a much better place in your career. “If you have the opportunity of a lifetime that requires you to take one step back to get four steps forward, you can’t take that opportunity if you’re spending everything you have,” he said. “I live below my means to create that environment of financial flexibility.”

So that he and his wife don’t go bonkers tracking every expense, they use personal financial management program mint.com. Looking at it once a month for a half hour gives him a sense of where the money’s going and makes it much easier to reassess expenses. It helps that he and his wife charge everything they can to their Chase Sapphire 1% cash-back card. (He already has all the frequent flier miles he could possibly need, from his travel to speak at conferences.)The debt

When you have big monthly payments, you are crimping the one thing Kitces is laser-focused on—financial flexibility. His only debt is the mortgage on the house. He and his wife pay off their credit cards in full every month.

Many planners recommend an emergency savings fund of about six months. Kitces’s is 12 to 18 months. “That’s probably a little higher than I’d recommend for other people, because a lot of my income is self-employed income. If something happens to me, my income falls off a cliff a lot faster,” he said, explaining that “getting sick and being out for a few weeks or months means a significant loss of income, and the chance I’ll lose clients who won’t come back after I get better.”

At first, fresh out of Bates College and working in sales, Kitces couldn’t save anything. When he could, any savings went to paying down debt or building an emergency fund. Then he began saving a small percentage of his income, and now, with his lifestyle little changed over the years while his income has risen, he saves more than half of his income. “It’s not because I was trying to do that from the start,” he said. “There’s no way I could have. But it was really easy not to spend more and to save half of my income.” 

He focused first on saving in the right kinds of accounts. When his income and tax bracket were low, he saved in a Roth 401(k). Now he contributes to a traditional 401(k) because he’s making more money and wants the tax deduction.The big asset

After joining Pinnacle in 2002 as director of financial planning, he became a partner and the director of research in 2008. (Pinnacle has $1.4 billion under management.) Buying into the firm was expensive, but his long-term spending discipline made it possible.

“The biggest investment I’ve made, dollar-wise, was buying in as a partner,” he said. “Owning [part of] an advisory firm is like buying stocks with leverage. The revenue is tied fairly heavily to markets, but we have staff and overhead.” He views his job as akin to owning a really volatile stock and, to an extent, manages his assets accordingly. “It’s partly why my reserves get up to 18 months,” he said.   

Kitces doesn’t feel deprived, since his goal is “not to get on that roller coaster.” Because he has a good handle on expenses, he can afford to indulge himself once in a while. The trick is choosing treats that won’t become a permanent part of his budget. A few years ago, that was a new TV; he figures they won’t need another one for a long time. Vacations also work well. “For almost any remotely normal family vacation, I don’t care how fancy you go, it’s a whole order of magnitude less expensive than when you’re talking about things like buying new cars,” he said.

Once you get the big expenses right—where you live and what you drive—the small ones are less of a worry, Kitces said. He has no problem driving his Kia to Starbucks and indulging in a cafe misto. “My car takes me from point A to point B,” he said. “I know people with very nice cars who will work 20 years longer than I do.”