If you put off investing in your 20s due to paying off student loans or the fits and starts of establishing your career, your 30s are when you need to start putting money away. You're still young enough to reap the rewards of compound interest, but old enough to be investing 10% to 15% of your income.
It's Never Too Early to Start Investing
Spending every penny you earn when you're young is tempting, but investing at 18 or even earlier puts you far ahead of the game later in life. You could potentially grow your investments much more, and you'll have a better understanding of the financial system.
Note that past returns do not indicate future success. Of course, a portfolio of mostly stocks is generally seen as more risky, but 25-year-olds are often said to have a larger risk tolerance since they have more time to weather market dips and recover after losses.
"The 20s are a crucial time to start building wealth and saving for retirement," Egan said. "The younger you start investing, the more you can reap the benefits of compounding and long-term market gains.
Once you're ready to start investing, it's time to open and fund a brokerage account. Anyone at least 18 years old can open an online brokerage account. Those who are younger than that will need a parent's assistance. Parents can either open a brokerage account on their teen's behalf or set up a custodial account.
Twenty-somethings have some definitive advantages over those who wait to begin investing, including time, the ability to weather increased risk, and opportunities to increase future wages. Even if you have to start small, it's in your advantage to start early!
By starting investments early in life, one gains a key advantage – time. Investors who start investing in their 20s will have more time to grow their wealth, so they will be in a better position to reach all their financial goals easily.
If you are under 18, you cannot own stocks, mutual funds, and other financial assets outright. As a minor, you can make investments only under the supervision of your parent (or an adult) through a custodial account. Your parent will have to sign you up for a custodial account offered by an online broker.
When you're young, you generally want higher returns that stocks, stock-based mutual funds, or ETFs can provide – rather than slower-growing investments like bonds and CDs. Yes, there is inherently more risk in these types of investments, but remember: You're investing with a long-term mindset.
A parent or guardian opens a custodial account for you and then “gifts” funds into it. For 2020, up to $15,000 can be gifted into a custodial account. Once the funds are in the account, you can begin investing the money. Of course, your parent or guardian will have to make the actual trades for you.
You'll rev your returns by starting early. Starting at age 23, you need to put away just $14 per day to reach $1 million by age 67. Wait just seven years, until age 30, and you have to increase that amount by 50%. Hold off until age 35 and you'll have to save more than twice as much as at 23.
One of the simplest ways to start investing in your 20s is to enroll in your workplace retirement plan like a 401k. Once you've enrolled in a plan, consider contributing at least enough to get the full company match if your employer offers one. If you don't, you could be leaving money on the table.
How much do you need to save in your 20s? As you embark on your career and set the path for future finances, your 20s is the time to set strong savings habits. Using the 50/30/20 model, you could be aiming to save upwards of $500 every month (or as close to 20% as you can).
By age 25, you should have saved at least 0.5X your annual expenses. The more the better. In other words, if you spend $50,000 a year, you should have about $25,000 in savings. If you spend $100,000 a year, you should have at least $50,000 in savings.
You probably want to hang it up around the age of 70, if not before. That's not only because, by that age, you are aiming to conserve what you've got more than you are aiming to make more, so you're probably moving more money into bonds, or an immediate lifetime annuity.
Well, if you want to invest in the stock market by yourself, you have to be an adult, or at least 18 years old to buy stocks. Minors can't invest in the stock market by themselves, teenagers under 18 included in that group.
Robinhood does not allow investing for those under 18. Investing as a minor requires opening what is known as a custodial accounts.
As you get deeper into your 20s, you should shoot to have about one quarter of your annual cash (25% of your gross pay) saved up, according to a spokeswoman for the budgeting app Mint. That means that the typical 25-year old might want to have somewhere around $10,000 in savings. Curious about where you stand?