You can start these savings tips earlier, but it’s important to start thinking about your future and retirement when you’re in your 30s.
Welcome to full-on adulthood, 30+-year-olds. Despite more than a decade of adulting experience, we all still need a bit of help, so we listed a few simple savings tips and money goals for you to start applying to your life to graduate into a money-wise adult.
Embrace planning for retirement
Hopefully, you’ve been saving for retirement throughout your 20s, but just in case you missed that savings tip, you really need to embrace planning for your future outside of the full-time workforce. 401(k) plans, traditional and Roth IRAs, and 403(b) plans can safeguard your financial future.
When it comes to how much of your monthly income you should put toward retirement, it all depends on the age you started saving for retirement. According to the Center for Retirement at Boston College, if you started saving at 25, you only need to earmark 15% of your annual salary to retire at 65, but if you wait until you’re 45, you will need to put aside 41% of your yearly salary.
“For example, a 25-year-old saving $5,000 annually for 43 years, achieving an average annual return of 8% on their investments will have $1.67 million at retirement,” said Peter J. Creedon, CFP®, CEO of Crystal Book Advisors, via Investopedia. “Someone waiting until age 35 to start saving and only having 33 years to contribute to—at $5,000 a year and an 8% return—would have $730,000.”
Take as much risk as you can stomach
While you do need to start planning for retirement, remember that you also have time to take risks in the market since you have time on your side. After all, your savings timeline is literally 30-40 years.
“Young people have the ability to weather a setback and they can wait for a rebound,” said Ed Slott, author of Your Complete Retirement Planning Road Map. “They can set it and forget it, within reason. Then the market will be good to them long-term.”
Before inflation, the average annual return of the stock market since its inception in 1926 is approximately 10%, using the S&P 500 as a proxy. With this long-term horizon in mind, consider investing in stocks through EFTs and mutual funds, but remember all investing comes with risks.
Diversify your portfolio
If taking risks aren’t your thing, consider diversifying your portfolio while securing your initial deposits by using Save® accounts. Save accounts are powered by savings and investment technology that provide much better return potential all while your deposits are FDIC insured.
Save currently offers the Debit Invest card, which matches every qualified dollar a customer spends with a dollar of equivalent investment*. The Debit Invest card’s annual average return potential is 2.96%**, which outperforms the best debit rewards programs.
Save’s next account to launch is the Market Savings account, which will also be FDIC insured.With this new account, the money you save will earn a potential return after a 12-month term. With average annual returns for the Premium account of 1.46%** and 1.03%** for the Core account, your account has the potential to generate even more wealth.
Save expects their accounts to give you a return several multiples more than other high-yield interest savings accounts. Additionally, each Market Savings account holder will also have the option to use Save’s debit card.
Think of the children with a 529 plan
If you don’t have children nor plan to have any in the future, feel free to skip this savings tip.
Otherwise, current and future parents, listen up. A 529 plan is a tax-advantaged savings plan for a college education, tuition, and room and board costs. The SEC explains the differences between two types: prepaid tuition plans and education savings plans, on their website.
If you’re planning on sending your child to Harvard or any other high-tuition private school, start saving early. According to Vanguard’s college cost projector, tuition estimates will be around $25,847 per year in 2039 for a public, in-state 4-year school. Considering this, tuition can add up to more than $100,000 over four years, so you don’t want to play catch-up when they’re in high school or leave them with student loan payments as their graduation gift.
Divert monthly payments to savings options
With age, comes the clearing of debts like car payments and student loans. Celebrate closing these accounts by diverting your monthly payments for your car or student loans to your preferred savings option, whether it’s for retirement via your 401(k) or IRAs, or your Save Market Savings account in lump sums.
After all, your budget is already accustomed to those funds leaving your net income, so you might as well put it toward good use for your future.
Implement savings tips you forgot in your 20s
There are healthy financial habits, including maintaining an updated budget plan or checking your card statements regularly, that are great to get in the habit of in your 20s. Sometimes, we miss lessons, so there’s no time like the present to implement simple ways to save money.
This is the second post in a four-part series on how to save money and set money goals at certain ages. Read the tips for saving in you’re in your 20s and return next month for the next posts or follow Save on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram for updates.
*For each qualified spend using the Save Debit Invest card, Save buys a strategy-linked security whose investment value is equivalent to the dollar spent.
**Average annual returns are based on hypothetical back-tested performance. Hypothetical back-tested performance is no guarantee of future performance and actual results will vary. Returns are subject to change daily. Minimum return will always be at least 0%. All return figures shown are for informational purposes only and are not actual customer returns. For more detailed information please see Hypothetical Back-testing. Return on Savings Calculation: We assumed that the Core Bundle would appeal to the lower 20% of the income distribution and the Premium Bundle would appeal to the 60-79.9% percentile. We then assumed that they would have the average savings account balance for that income bracket on the Market Savings account and the median transaction account balance as debit spend on the Debit Invest Card every month. From the Survey of Consumer Finance, 2019 – Core Inputs: Debit Invest Spending $800 per month; Savings balance $8700. Premium Inputs: Debit Invest Spending $10,000 per month; Savings Balance $28,700. We calculated the returns on each of those products and used that to calculate the return on savings: return on debit in dollars plus return on savings in dollars divided by savings balance in dollars equals Return on Savings. Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm
