The most useful personal finance framework I've encountered is also the simplest: spend less than you earn, invest the difference, wait.

Every complexity beyond that is optimization. Some of it is worth pursuing: tax efficiency, low expense ratios, proper asset allocation, debt management. But the optimization is second-order. The first-order behavior is the one that determines 90% of your outcome.

I've seen people achieve excellent financial results with suboptimal but consistent behavior: a 1% expense ratio instead of 0.03%, a traditional instead of Roth IRA, a savings account instead of HYSA. None of these were ideal but they didn't fail because the underlying behavior (spend less, invest, wait) was right.

I've also seen people understand the optimal strategy perfectly and fail anyway because they couldn't execute the underlying behavior consistently.

The right order: behavior first, optimization second. Master the first before obsessing over the second.