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Mid-30s age life crisis that made me start googling financial milestones? Perhaps. Whether you are in your 20s or 60s, what are some financial milestones not included in this list that you think are important to call out to others?
Here is the financial milestones post that I came across on Investor Junkie that triggered this blog post based on my own experience.
Here are the 5 financial milestones to achieve in your 20s and 30s
- Landing your first career type position – I would say I have accomplished this and I know what I want to do for my career, which is Digital Marketing. I have 10+ years of Marketing experience having evolved from being a direct mail analyst, bouncing around a bit, gaining experience, and now a VP, Digital Marketing at a Fortune 500. I make 6 figures currently and have ambitions to get into a higher VP level within one year and into an SVP role within five years. Clearly I do not have the ambition to retire by blogging or any of my other side hustles for that matter.
- Opening a checking account – Yes, I have a checkings account. I think it is important to teach others about the pros and cons of having a checking account. For example, having a checking account allows you to have easy and quick access to cash. However, it is very easy to take money out and end up falling short on expenses. Do you know what an NSF is? I experienced having non sufficient funds in my checking account multiple times in my 20s during my numerous money moron moments. It is one of the most embarrassing moments you can experience in addition to having your credit card declined in public, which I have also experienced numerous times in my 20s.
- Starting and regularly funding an emergency fund – I have more than the recommended 3-6 months in my emergency fund, which is probably a huge mistake because I should be using a portion of the emergency fund towards my massive $34K student loan debt. Looking back I should have allocated several months of my emergency fund to ETFs to take advantage of the current state of the market. I am beginning to think that having as much as 4-6 months of your financial expenses is a bit too much.
- Starting a retirement plan – Here is a money moron moment. During my early years out of college, the company I joined had a company match of up to 8%. I contributed exactly zero. Literally no contributions. I missed out on contributing to any company retirement plans for the majority of my 20s. I missed out big time and I am behind for my age. Present day, I had contributed to my current employer’s retirement plan from 12% for a few years and just recently reduced my contribution to a bare minimum of 4% to take advantage of the company’s 401k employer match.
- Investing outside a retirement plan – I currently have individual stocks worth 5 figures. I admit the smarter thing to do is to use this money to pay off my student loan debt. The stock portfolio (no ETFs) I have is made up of hand picked tech stocks and is currently up 21% since Q1 2018 (not annualized). My best bets in early 2018 have been Amazon currently as of this post +25%, Facebook +24%, and several other tech stocks up +mid-teens%. My worst picks have been Abbott Laboratories +4% and Berkshire Hathway Class B -0.2% (recently bought in June).
5 more financial milestones will be in the next post.
