Investing at Every Life Stage

Over your lifetime, you’ll have many goals to save for. Some will be shorter-term, while others, like retirement, will continue throughout your working years. No matter where you are in your investing journey, prioritizing your goals and assessing your progress are essential steps.

Your Early Career

When you’re in your 20s and 30s and just starting out, you’ll probably have multiple goals competing for limited dollars. But you’ll also have an advantage: a very long investing time horizon. At this stage, focus on laying down a solid financial base. Your priorities should include:

• Paying off student loan debt.


• Saving six-to-twelve months’ worth of living expenses in an emergency fund in case of a job loss or an unexpected bill. You’ll need an emergency fund at every life stage.


• Saving for retirement. By starting early in your career, you’ll have many years to benefit from the potential growth of your savings. Your long time frame generally means you can take more risk with your investments.

At the Midpoint

During your 40s and 50s, you might have competing goals: saving for your children’s college and your retirement. Keep in mind that you’ll need to save more for retirement than for any other goal that you have. If your retirement plan allows, take advantage of automatic contribution increases whenever you get a raise. At age 50 and older, you can also make annual catch-up contributions. Mid-career is an appropriate time for you and your financial professional to assess your progress toward achieving your goals and make changes if you’re not on track.

In the Final Stretch

Once you reach your 50s and 60s, your children may be out of college and on their own. Pumping up your retirement savings by building assets in brokerage or other non-retirement accounts can provide flexibility when you’re ready to start living off your assets. Reduce your risk by holding a portion of your portfolio in lower risk investments to avoid selling stocks when values are down. But be sure to keep a portion of your portfolio in equity investments to provide a cushion against inflation.