Turning 30 can bring a shift in the way you approach your finances. Investing in your 30s can look very different from the way you invest in your 20s or 40s, based on your goals, strategies, and needs.
At this stage in life you may be working on paying off the remainder of your student loan debt while focusing on saving. Your financial priorities may revolve around buying a home and starting a family. At the same time, you may be hoping to add investing for retirement into the mix (or increase the amount you’re already investing) as you approach your peak earning years.
Finding ways to make these goals and needs fit together is what financial planning in your 30s is all about. Knowing how to invest your money as a 30-something can help you start building wealth for the decades to come.
Key Points
• In your 30s, set specific, measurable, and actionable financial goals, such as contributing 10% of income to a 401(k) and aiming for a net worth of two times your annual salary by 40.
• Embracing a balanced level of risk that you feel comfortable with, is one tip for investing in your 30s. The longer you have to invest, generally the more risk you may be able to take.
• Diversifying investment portfolios across different assets such as stocks, bonds, and cash, for example, can help spread out risk.
• Leverage tax-advantaged accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs for retirement savings, and taxable accounts for flexibility and additional contributions.
• Prioritize building an emergency fund, achieving short-term goals, and paying off debt, while also saving for the future.
5 Tips for Investing in Your 30s
1. Define Your Investment Goals
Setting clear financial goals in your 30s or at any age is critical. Your goals are your end points, the things that you’re saving for.
So as you consider how to invest in your 30s, think about the result you’re hoping to achieve. Focus on goals that are specific, easy to measure, and actionable.
For example, your goals for investing as a 30-something may include:
• Contributing 10% of your income to your 401(k) plan each year
• Maxing out annual contributions to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA)
• Saving three times your salary for retirement by age 40
• Achieving a net worth of two times your annual salary by age 40
These goals work because you can define them using real numbers. Say for example, you make $50,000 a year. To meet each of these goals, you’d need to:
• Contribute $5,000 to your 401(k)
• Save $7,000 in an IRA
• Have $150,000 in retirement savings by age 40
• Grow your net worth to $100,000 by age 40
Setting goals this way may require you to be a little more aggressive in your financial approach. But having hard numbers to work with can help motivate you to move forward.
2. Know Your Tolerance for Risk
If there’s one important rule to remember about investing in your 30s, it’s that time is on your side.
When retirement is still several decades away, you typically have time to recover from the inevitable bouts of market volatility that you’re likely to experience. The market moves in cycles; sometimes it’s up, others it’s down. But the longer you have to invest, the more risk you can generally afford to take.
The best investments for 30 somethings are the ones that allow you to achieve your goals while taking on a level of risk with which you feel comfortable. That being said, here’s another investing rule to remember: the greater the investment risk, the greater the potential rewards.
Stocks, for example, are riskier than bonds, but of the two, stocks are likely to produce better returns over time. If you’re not sure how to choose your first stock, you may have heard that it’s easiest to buy what you know. But there’s more to investing in stocks than just that. When comparing the best stocks to buy in your 30s, think about things like:
• How profitable a particular company is and its overall financial health
• Whether you want to invest in a stock for capital appreciation (i.e. growth) or income (i.e. dividends)
• How much you’ll need to invest in a particular stock
• Whether you’re interested in short-term trading or using a buy-and-hold strategy
Past history isn’t an indicator of future performance, so don’t focus on returns alone when choosing stocks. Instead, consider what you want to get from your investments and how each type of investment can help you achieve that.
đź’ˇ Quick Tip: When people talk about investment risk, they mean the risk of losing money. Some investments are higher risk, some are lower. Be sure to bear this in mind when investing online.
3. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
Investing in your 30s can mean taking risk but you don’t necessarily want to have 100% of your portfolio committed to just a handful of stocks. A diversified portfolio with multiple investments can help spread out the risk associated with each investment.
So why does portfolio diversification matter? It’s simple. A portfolio that’s diversified is better able to balance risk. Say, for example, you have 80% of your investments dedicated to stocks and the remaining 20% split between bonds and cash. If stocks experience increased volatility, your lower-risk investments could help smooth out losses.
Or say you want to allocate 90% of your portfolio to stocks. Rather than investing in just a few stocks, you could spread out risk by investing and picking one or more low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) instead.
ETFs are similar to mutual funds, but they trade on an exchange like a stock. That means you get the benefit of liquidity and flexibility of a stock along with the exposure to a diversified collection of different assets. Your diversified portfolio might include an index ETF that tracks the performance of the S&P 500, an ETF that’s focused on growth stocks, a couple of bond ETFs, and some individual stocks.
This type of strategy allows you to be aggressive with your investments in your 30s without putting all of your eggs in one basket, so to speak. That can help with growing wealth without inviting more risk into your portfolio than you’re prepared to handle.
đź’ˇ Quick Tip: When you’re actively investing in stocks, it’s important to ask what types of fees you might have to pay. For example, brokers may charge a flat fee for trading stocks, or require some commission for every trade. Taking the time to manage investment costs can be beneficial over the long term.
4. Leverage Tax-Advantaged and Taxable Accounts
Asset allocation, or what you decide to invest in, matters for building a diversified portfolio. But asset location is just as important.
Asset location refers to where you keep your investments. This includes tax-advantaged accounts and taxable accounts. Tax-advantaged accounts offer tax benefits to investors, such as tax-deferred growth and/or deductions for contributions. Examples of tax-advantaged accounts include:
• Workplace retirement plans, such as a 401(k)
• Traditional and Roth IRAs
• IRA CDs
• Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)
• 529 College Savings Accounts
If you’re interested in investing for retirement in your 30s, your workplace plan might be the best place to start. You can defer money from your paychecks into your retirement account and may benefit from an employer-matching contribution if your company offers one. That’s free money to help you build wealth for the future.
You could also open an IRA to supplement your 401(k) or in place of one if you don’t have a plan at work. Traditional IRAs can offer a deduction for contributions while Roth IRAs allow for tax-free distributions in retirement. When opening an IRA, think about whether getting a tax break now versus in retirement would be more valuable to you.
If you’re not earning a lot in your 30s but expect to be in a higher tax bracket when you retire, then a Roth IRA could make sense. But if you’re earning more now, then you may prefer the option to deduct what you save in a traditional IRA.
You might also consider taxable accounts for investing in your 30s. With a taxable brokerage account, you don’t get any tax breaks, and you’ll owe capital gains tax on any investments you sell at a profit. But there are no contribution limits on taxable accounts as there are with 401(k)s and IRAs, so you can contribute as much as you like. And if you need money for a shorter-term goal, such as a down payment on a house, a taxable investment account doesn’t have restrictions on how much money you can withdraw and when you can withdraw it, unlike retirement accounts. So your money is easier to access.
5. Prioritize Other Financial Goals
Retirement is one of the most important financial goals to think about, but planning for it doesn’t have to sideline your other goals. Financial planning in your 30s should be more comprehensive than that, factoring in things like:
• Buying a home
• Marriage and children
• Saving for emergencies
• Saving for short-term goals
• Paying off debt
As you build out your financial plan, consider how you want to prioritize each of your goals. After all, you only have so much income to spread across them, so think about which ones need to be funded first.
That might mean creating an emergency fund, then working on shorter-term goals while also setting aside money for your child’s college education and contributing to your 401(k). And if you’re still paying off student loans or other debts, that may take priority over something like saving for college.
Looking at the bigger financial picture can help with balancing investing alongside your other goals.
The Takeaway
Your 30s are a great time to start investing and it’s important to remember that it doesn’t have to be complicated or overwhelming. Taking even small steps toward getting your money in order can help improve your financial security, both now and in the future.
Ready to invest in your goals? It’s easy to get started when you open an investment account with SoFi Invest. You can invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, alternative funds, and more. SoFi doesn’t charge commissions, but other fees apply (full fee disclosure here).
FAQ
What is the best way to invest money in your 30s?
Some of the options to invest money in your 30s include participating in your employer’s 401(k) and contributing enough to get the employer match, if possible; opening an IRA and maxing out the contribution limit of $7,000 in 2025 ($8,000 for those age 50 and up); and diversifying your investments across different asset classes and sectors to help spread out the risk.
What is $1,000 a month invested for 30 years?
It depends how the money is invested and the rate of return on the investment. If you invest $1,000 a month for 30 years in an index fund that tracks the S&P 500, for example — where the average annual inflation-adjusted return is about 7% — you would have about $1.2 million. However, if your investment has a lower rate of return of, say, 4%, you would have about $700,000 after 30 years.
Is 30 too late to start investing?
No, 30 is not too late to start investing. In fact, it’s a good time to start. The earlier you begin investing, the more time your money has to grow. If you start at age 30 and retire at age 65, for instance, your money will potentially have 35 years to compound and grow. That stretch of years also helps you ride out ups and downs in the stock market.
About the author
Rebecca Lake
Rebecca Lake has been a finance writer for nearly a decade, specializing in personal finance, investing, and small business. She is a contributor at Forbes Advisor, SmartAsset, Investopedia, The Balance, MyBankTracker, MoneyRates and CreditCards.com. Read full bio.
Photo credit: iStock/katleho Seisa
INVESTMENTS ARE NOT FDIC INSURED • ARE NOT BANK GUARANTEED • MAY LOSE VALUE
For disclosures on SoFi Invest platforms visit SoFi.com/legal. For a full listing of the fees associated with Sofi Invest please view our fee schedule.
Financial Tips & Strategies: The tips provided on this website are of a general nature and do not take into account your specific objectives, financial situation, and needs. You should always consider their appropriateness given your own circumstances.
Mutual Funds (MFs): Investors should carefully consider the information contained in the prospectus, which contains the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other relevant information. You may obtain a prospectus from the Fund company’s website or clicking the prospectus link on the fund's respective page at sofi.com. You may also contact customer service at: 1.855.456.7634. Please read the prospectus carefully prior to investing.Mutual Funds must be bought and sold at NAV (Net Asset Value); unless otherwise noted in the prospectus, trades are only done once per day after the markets close. Investment returns are subject to risk, include the risk of loss. Shares may be worth more or less their original value when redeemed. The diversification of a mutual fund will not protect against loss. A mutual fund may not achieve its stated investment objective. Rebalancing and other activities within the fund may be subject to tax consequences.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs): Investors should carefully consider the information contained in the prospectus, which contains the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other relevant information. You may obtain a prospectus from the Fund company’s website or by emailing customer service at [email protected]. Please read the prospectus carefully prior to investing.
Investment Risk: Diversification can help reduce some investment risk. It cannot guarantee profit, or fully protect in a down market.
S&P 500 Index: The S&P 500 Index is a market-capitalization-weighted index of 500 leading publicly traded companies in the U.S. It is not an investment product, but a measure of U.S. equity performance. Historical performance of the S&P 500 Index does not guarantee similar results in the future. The historical return of the S&P 500 Index shown does not include the reinvestment of dividends or account for investment fees, expenses, or taxes, which would reduce actual returns.
Third-Party Brand Mentions: No brands, products, or companies mentioned are affiliated with SoFi, nor do they endorse or sponsor this article. Third-party trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective owners.
Tax Information: This article provides general background information only and is not intended to serve as legal or tax advice or as a substitute for legal counsel. You should consult your own attorney and/or tax advisor if you have a question requiring legal or tax advice.
Third Party Trademarks: Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Center for Financial Planning, Inc. owns and licenses the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®
SOIN-Q325-085