Updated: 9 July 2020

For many people, their thirties is the decade of settling down — possibly buying a house and starting a family. Here’s a checklist to make sure you stay on track financially:

Investing for Retirement

Once you have paid off your debts, start seriously focusing on investing. Learning how to invest will be your next major stage. This will be a stage when there are lots of questions — what is the best retirement option, how much should you be saving, and what type of investments are best? Check that your retirement plan contributions match your goals. We will do a separate blog on this big topic.

Ensuring Your Investments Are Diverse

If you started saving during your twenties, now is the time to make sure you have a portfolio designed for long-term growth. This means heavy on stocks and relatively light on bonds. Also, remember to include funds that give you international exposure – the reason for doing this is that not all stock markets in the world move in the same direction at the same time, so diversifying your portfolio can give you some protection (the technical term is “hedging”).

Having the Right Insurance

Review your health, auto, life, and disability plans. Do you have insurance? Do you have an adequate amount? We will further explore this topic in a separate blog. At the very least, be sure you have minimal insurance in place.

Saving for College

As the cost of college continues to increase, you’ll want to be sure that you are setting savings aside for their future education. The amount you save should increases the older your children are when you start saving. The three major options are 529 plans, Educational ESAs, and the Roth IRA for college savings. Just make sure to contribute to your retirement account too.

Home Mortgage

There are a lot of financial and non-financial incentives for paying off your mortgage. We tend to focus on the non-financial elements and recommend that people pay off their homes early. Consider purchasing a home. If you plan to stay in your city long term, buying a home can be a viable investment. If you decide that purchasing property is right for you, check with your city to see if there is a first-time homeowner tax credit or program that helps with down payment or advantageous interest rate. Regardless, start setting aside savings for the down payment.