Are you sick and tired of hearing that the secret to getting rich is simply cutting out the $5 lattes you like to drink?

If so, you’re in good company, including the company of bestselling author Ramit Sethi. While cutting back on unnecessary expenses is a great way to keep more of your hard-earned money, it’s far from the only thing you need to do to become wealthy down the road.

The $5 latte advice and similar ‘tricks’ to save you money simply don’t add up unless your only goal is to save in the short term. Beyond that, very few people actually listen to this advice, anyway. No matter how much money you make, you will always find something dear to you which you feel the need to spend more money than you absolutely need to on. So, let’s get real with the help of Sethi and crunch the numbers:

If you are trying to save up for a house, the average American house costs $245,000. If you want to save up for a down payment by cutting out that delicious latte, it’ll take you 26 years to be able to afford it.

This is not to discourage you from saving, of course, but the point is that simply trying to save $4 here and $5 there won’t help you much. Instead, it can be more useful to focus on the big wins in your financial life. If you win in the 6 critical areas of your financial life, you won’t ever have to worry about the price of your lattes again. These wins include:

1. Having a great job (your dream job, ideally)
2. Negotiating your salary
3. INVESTING. Forgoing on investing is simply leaving money on the table to rot, instead of making it work for you. Investing early will save you many regrets down the road.
4. Improving your credit score
5. Automating your finances
6. Earning extra money on the side