Are you GAH or FAB?

Don’t bother Googling these silly made-up acronyms; GAH is “Getting Ahead,” and FAB is “Falling Behind,” but I’m quite sure they’ll be all the rage in 2025. So clearly, we need to figure out—what constitutes getting ahead vs. falling behind?

Getting Ahead

Getting ahead is baked into the American psyche. We want to outperform our parents, have our children outperform us, keep up with the Jones, and know that we’re saving enough so that we never run out of money. From a financial standpoint, this usually means that our net worth is growing or, more specifically, our account balances are growing faster than inflation.

Getting ahead implies growing a nest egg that trends ostrich vs. sparrow so we can afford our lifestyle today and when we flip the Work Switch to the OFF mode.

We usually measure getting ahead both by dollars and a subjective comparison to both our own past and our Jones’s.

Real getting ahead certainly requires financial security, but the measurement is often better against the face in the mirror today than any ghosts of our past or Jones’s of our present.

Life is a 1 v 1 game.  It’s you versus your expectations of yourself. To get ahead, you must focus on what progress and winning means to you today. That may have a little or a lot to do with dollar signs.

When it comes to financial security, getting ahead can be 1 v 1 with the person in the mirror, but it’s often 2 v X. Couples must both define their personal version of getting ahead and their joint version of getting ahead and then blend the two in a way that keeps each spouse on track while keeping the marriage on track.

While getting ahead isn’t all about financial numbers, there are rules of thumb that can be useful check-ins on progress.

The “Average Accumulator of Wealth” (AAW) formula posed in The Millionaire Next Door suggests that your income times your age, divided by 10 should be the floor of your net worth. This works best past age 40 when compounding has worked its magic for a bit.

A 40-year-old Lt Col earning, say, $175K (basic pay, flight pay, and BAH) should then have a net worth of $700K to be an “average” accumulator of wealth (AAW). (The Millionaire Next Door defines 2x that amount as a PAW—Prodigious Accumulator of Wealth, just in case you need to pat yourself on the back).

This is one way to benchmark “getting ahead,” but we all need to determine our own measuring stick.

Falling Behind

Arguably, falling behind could be any status that isn’t getting ahead. Financially, this might look like lagging the AAW formula after one’s 30s. But life isn’t just about money. It’s about fulfillment and purpose.

It’s possible that falling behind for some of us is failing to take care of our health or marriage. Falling behind could be working too many hours instead of being present for the deep and meaningful relationships in our lives.

Getting ahead may imply yard-sticking with the Joneses, but falling behind is much more about not using our laps around the sun in a purposeful manner.  The Joneses will never care if you’re fulfilled; you have to do that. (They also won’t care if you keep up with their cars, homes, or vacations either.)

If you self-assess yourself as falling behind, the nice thing is you can redefine getting ahead and falling behind at any time. You own your version of fulfillment and purpose.

If you’re behind on the net worth trajectory, you own that fix, too! (Hint: pay yourself first, skip debt, skip credit cards.)

Cleared to Rejoin

Americans are competitive, often to a fault. We usually have a sense of whether we’re getting ahead or falling behind.  Money is part of that, but ultimately, we own our definition of purpose. If we’re designing and living a fulfilling life, we’re exactly where we should be—neither ahead nor behind.

Fight’s On!

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