How can I get rich in my 30s?
Millennials are often seen as an impoverished generation. Many of us graduated university with student loan debt, can’t afford to buy a home, and face job prospects that don’t pay nearly enough to support a standard of living. The truth is, many millennials will struggle to build wealth for the first third of their adult life. However, there are plenty of ways to get rich in your 30s and beyond. Whether you’re looking for investments or side hustles, there are plenty of opportunities to boost your net worth — you just need to know where to look.
In this article, we’ll discuss how millennials can build wealth in their 30s and beyond. We’ll cover topics such as investing, housing markets, job security, side gigs and retirement planning. By reading through this blog post, you’ll learn about different ways that you can increase your net worth in the coming years — no matter what stage you’re at right now.
This article will provide you with some tips on how to get rich in your 30s.
There is no one guaranteed path to becoming rich in your 30s, but there are a few practical tips you can apply to improve your chances:
1. Start investing early and as often as you can
Create a budget and stick to it – knowing where your money is going is a key part of financial success. Having a budget will help you make smart decisions about spending and investing. A practical way to start doing that is to apply Warren Buffet’s principle of managing your current income so as to turn it into your future wealth as time goes by.
Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving. – Warren Buffet
The primary reason why it is critical to start investing early and often is because of a fundamental principle of building financial wealth called the time value of money (TVM). This core principal of finance simply means that any given amount of money you manage to save today will effectively remain more valuable than the same amount of money in the future. Also, it is important to note that getting saving “early” is only the start, what it takes to become rich overtime is to do so “often”. By saving money often, you will leverage the time value of money in perpetuity and in a passive way as your money will keep growing while you sleep.
Everyone knows you can’t get rich quick, at least not in a sustainable manner. The trick is to get richer slow. No matter how old you are, there are lots of opportunities to make money and become wealthier. However, getting rich in your 30s is a great goal because it means you have time to build up wealth and get comfortable before you hit retirement age. But what does ‘get rich’ mean? There are many different ways that people make money, from investing in stocks to starting your own business and selling products online or offline. Regardless of the avenue you take, the key is to make smart choices about how you spend and save your money as well as planning for the future. So what can you do right now to increase your net worth?
2. Invest in your future “millionaire” self
Simply put, this means Invest in your non-traditional education (vs. tertiary education), your career (whether formal employment or freelancing), and your health (not just physiological but also mental health). All of these things will help you remain focused enough to ultimately manage to acquire assets, which will in turn earn you more money and set you (and your family) up for success.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. – Benjamin Franklin
One way to gain financial literacy in your 30s is to take a personal finance class. Many business schools offer personal finance classes, and there are also many online courses available to help you build your millionaire mindset. That said, another cost effective way to gain financial literacy is to invest in reading tried and tested business books or articles about personal finance, talking to a financial planner, or taking part in a financial literacy program.
3. Be patient and persistent with your investment strategies
With so many responsibilities, bills, and other financial obligations in your 20s, it can be challenging to find the time or resources to build wealth in your 30s. This is why it is very important to be patient while being persistent with your chosen investment strategy. Your strategy could be investing in real estate, which would undoubtedly require a significant financial contribution upfront to either make a down payment or simply cover the hidden costs of acquiring real estate such as transfer costs, mortgage insurance, etc. Be prepared to run a marathon, building a successful investment strategy is not a quick race, it takes a tremendous amount of time.
Bottoms in the investment world don’t end with four-year lows; they end with 10- or 15-year lows. – Jim Rogers
However, if you have not been disciplined or consistent with your investment strategies since your early 20s, this doesn’t mean that you can’t make money in your 30s. On the contrary, being in your 30s can be a tremendous advantage to build wealth as you most likely have a lot of wisdom and maturity to most 20-year-olds. At this point, all you would need to have a solid financial plan that will allow you to save more money while also investing wisely.
With the right attitude and set of habits, it is possible to make money and build long-lasting generational wealth in your 30s.
4. Invest in stocks and bonds
When it comes to investing in the financial market, there are a lot of options to choose from. You can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs. Reasonably, it can be overwhelming to decide where to put your hard earned money, especially when you do not understand the financial market. In point no. 1 we talked about the fact that saving money on an ongoing basis is the first step towards building wealth. In reality, saving is only important because it enables you to have the financial resources to invest this money once the right investment opportunity arises. You goal is to save to invest, not just to keep your money in a savings account.
How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case. – Robert G. Allen
Therefore, if you are just starting out, it might be a good idea to invest in a mutual fund or an ETF. These funds are diversified, so you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket. As you learn and start getting more comfortable with investing, you can start buying individual stocks and bonds. This is the best investing strategy to mitigate risks while still growing your new portfolio.
Millennials are often pegged as a generation obsessed with personal fulfilment, not personal finance. But this doesn’t mean they’re not interested in getting rich. In fact, recent studies show that the average millennial will have almost $70,000 saved by the time they turn 35.
This might sound like peanuts to you if you’re in your 30s and feel like you should be well on your way to a million-dollar retirement fund already. But don’t despair; it’s never too late to build wealth and set yourself up for financial success going forward.
What’s important is that you start investing now. The sooner you start investing the money you have managed to save, the more time your money has to grow.
5. Start saving money for unforeseeable emergencies
The reality of of life is that as time goes by and we achieve financial success, we do not only grow richer, we also grow much older. Though investing can provide high financial return on your initial investments, stocks can crash and money can be lost forever without warning. It is a risky endeavour.
If there is one common theme to the vast range of the world’s financial crises, it is that excessive debt accumulation, whether by the government, banks, corporations, or consumers, often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom. – Carmen Reinhart
And the older you get, no matter how rich you have become, your body slowly begins to get weaker, and therefore more inclined to get sick. That is why once you have sacrificed a significant portion of your savings to invest, whether in stocks or in real estate or even a start-up company, you should later on start saving for emergencies. This way, you will not have to touch your investments to settle the bills of such unforeseeable emergencies. If you can, try to put away at least 10% to 20% of your (passive) income into an emergency savings account.
6. Build a strong network to build a strong net worth
Having friends, mentors, and colleagues who are successful will help you gain insights and access to opportunities that can help you build wealth. There are three ways to connect with the right people and start networking:
1. Get involved in online communities related to your interests in becoming financially free in your 30s.
2. Attend meetups and conferences related to investing in the financial market, real estate and businesses (tech start-ups).
3. Connect with high net worth individuals through social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter.
Networking can be very uncomfortable for most people, especially when it comes to approaching very accomplished individuals we genuinely admire and would like to learn from. But if you are already in your 30s and you want to become rich before reaching your 40s, you must become a networking beast. You must hang out with people who know how to make millions of dollars because they have invested millions of dollars.
Wealth is created and accumulated by wealthy people. So, the quickest way to get rich is to bring value (through your personality and bright ideas) to the attention of wealthy individuals so as to build a strategic business partnership or just to become their mentee and learn directly from them. Either way, you cannot achieve financial success in life if you stay in your comfort zone. This primarily applies to the people in your life, your inner circles (family, friends and even acquaintances). Purposely choose to surround yourself with people whose mere presence in your life makes you uncomfortable because their mindsets and subsequent behaviour towards money naturally challenge to overcome your own scarcity mindset and believe that you too, can become financially independent one day.
In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.” — Robert Arnott
Unless you’re a genius, an athlete or the child of rich parents, it’s unlikely that you’ll become very rich in your 30s. But it is possible to create financial security at an earlier age through dedication, focus and hard work. Becoming wealthy in your 30s requires planning, lots of sacrifice and huge amount of self-discipline – three things that get harder as you approach 40. You may not be able to hand-pick when you achieve wealth but by following the right steps, anyone can do so with enough lead time to enjoy the benefits of their efforts.
The devastating reality is that for most of us, even if our 20s, we are still a write-off due to student loans; even if our 30s bring new responsibilities like parenthood; even if our 40s involve unexpected expenses due to illness or old age parents. There’s no perfect time to get rich – there just needs to be a will. Be willing to learn the core principles of finance from wealthy people in order to embrace prosperity and let go of poverty. Whether you believe it of not, wealth and abundance are quintessentially a state of mind. Unfortunately, so are poverty and lack of opportunities. Wealthy people create their own opportunities by investing in themselves, businesses, the financial market (stocks and bonds) and in real estate. Whereas poor people wait and only pray for opportunities to be given to them. Unfortunately, by merely waiting, poor people neither learn about nor reap the economic benefits of the time value of money (TVM).
In conclusion, getting a handle on your finances when you’re in your 20s can feel like an impossible task, but it doesn’t have to be. With some smart planning, getting rich in your 30s is a very achievable feat. You might think that getting rich is all about having the right job with high pay and equity or something similar. But there are so many other ways to get rich in your 30s — not just financially speaking, but in every way possible. If you work hard, make smart decisions, and keep investing in yourself, you will almost certainly become richer than you are now. Being rich isn’t about how much money you have; it’s about how much wealth you have created, sustained and ultimately passed down to the next generations (inheritance left to your children and grandchildren in the form of trust funds, financial assets, real estate properties and shares of companies). Getting rich isn’t just about making more money; it’s also about managing your money properly and keeping as much of it as possible while also investing it effectively so that it generates even more money for you down the road.
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