Like I had a savings account, a retirement fund, some stocks doing okay, but I couldn’t see how it all connected or whether it was moving me forward. I started messing around with planning tools last year and most of them were either too simplistic or too much — either they just told me how much I’d saved this month, or they’d hit me with charts I didn’t understand. The one that actually stuck with me is MonitrexPRO. It’s got this way of pulling everything into one place and then helping you figure out where you want to go with it. I’ve been using it to map out different future scenarios — like what if I switch jobs next year, or what happens if I put more into my long-term goals now vs. later. What’s cool is that it updates your path based on your inputs, so it kind of adjusts as your life changes. That helped me stop treating financial planning like a one-time thing. It’s not some magic fix, but it gives you more clarity than I’ve ever gotten from any of those “5-step to success” articles. Also the risk level feature is super useful — you can tell it how conservative or aggressive you are and it reflects that in the suggestions. Took a bit of trial and error to get it set up the way I wanted, but now it’s become part of how I check in with myself every month.