Life is at odds with what financial advisers advocate.
It's not neatly parcelled into different decades dedicated to distinct achievements. Instead of thinking age-specific, think life phase: our monetary aims and behaviour will change according to where we are at in our life - not what year we're born.
After all, we could retire in our twenties or be starting families or university degrees in our forties. Or we could find that we are, for the first time, out of debt, starting to save money and daring to think about a fund for the future whichever decade we're in.
Of course averages are extrapolated and biological clocks and peak physical productivity taken into account - forecasts, projections and predictions invariably turn out to miss the mark, but they are important. How else are we to plan for pensions, investments and what could happen?
But life brings with it the unexpected. And I believe the simplistic way of packaging financial tools, ambitions or targets around how old we are is just wrong.
I used to explain this to marketing and advertising people - but I lost most of them straight off the bat when I didn't break things down into their neat, illogical, but key to their industry, ways of parcelling information and determining results.
Not only does life not conform to textbook perfection, but our norms and averages are changing too.
Just last month a survey by the asset manager MSF revealed that the investment objectives and behaviour of millennials and baby boomers is at odds with the advice they get. What worked for previous generations is no longer valid - not only because of what life throws at us individually, but also because of the fiscal pain that the world, and many people, have endured over the past few years.
For example, it appears that those nearing traditional retirement age are actively taking on more risk and looking for growth. Not at all in keeping with maximising income and preserving wealth as advisers advocate.
People in their 50s and above are still building their nest eggs. And in doing so they're taking on more risk than the younger millennials - who, in contrast, are seeking capital protection and income generation.
I keep reading about how the young will not accept how their parents have lived - shunning traditional work environments and ways of measuring productivity - choosing lifestyle over corporate culture and accolades. Of course this mindset will spill over into how they view and handle money.
Again, real life is not about living along an average trajectory. Things happen when they happen.
An extreme example is those who come into immense fortunes when they are "young".
This week the most popular post on Forbes is titled: The Youngest Billionaires on the Forbes 400: there are 11 of them under the age of 40 and they have a combined net worth of $78.5 billion.
They can afford to retire, but the assumption is that what got them there is what will keep them from doing so any time soon. Then again, I know a few self-made expat millionaires in the UAE who find themselves in the fortunate position of being able to stop working in their thirties - and have left the country to enjoy their young families and reconnect with their roots and their people back home.
Why am I banging on about this? Because we need financial tools that help us depending on our life phase - not the traditional ways of assessing and evaluating whether we are a good fit or risk.
Yes, we are transient expats. Yes, banks and markets here are behind the curve and are very traditional and boxed in their approach. So look elsewhere to have your needs met.
Just as financial advisers are realising that their cookie-cutter approaches of the past are no longer valid, banks too are also waking up to the need to serve clients differently.
Whether it's credit or bank cards with larger colour-contrast numbers so older people can actually see them or visiting customers in their homes as they are doing in Italy, change is afoot.
It is only recently that a bank in the UK got staff taking turns wearing a suit that would age them for the day - so that they could figure out what the increasingly important older client struggles with - so it's only a matter of time before we see some bright spark turn the traditional ways of determining who gets to buy a house or is worthy of a loan, into a way that is life phase dependent.
It can't happen soon enough.
Nima Abu Wardeh is the founder of the personal finance website cashy.me. You can reach her at nima@cashy.me
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