Financial management in your 30s

Financial priorities to consider in your 30s

By Telus Health

If you’re in your 30s, you might be starting to take your finances more seriously. You might have greater responsibilities now, like a mortgage or kids. Perhaps you accrued some debt in your 20s. Or maybe you want to start hitting some financial goals. Whatever your reason, your 30s is the time to get your finances sorted and on track for future stability.

Here are your big financial priorities to consider in your 30s.

Make saving a priority

If you’ve entered your 30s without savings, it might be time to start building it into your plan, ideally by automating a direct debit into a savings account every time you’re paid. If you’re looking for guidelines about how much to save, some personal finance experts suggest using a 50/30/20 breakdown: that is, spend 50 percent of your income on your living expenses, 30 percent on discretionary spending, and 20 percent on savings. You can always adjust the numbers if your living expenses are lower, too. Pay down your debt.

If you have credit card debt or other personal loans, now’s a good time to formulate a plan to get it paid off. Start by working out your incomings and outgoings, then see what expenditure you can reduce to redirect it toward paying off your debt. If you have a large debt or your debt is spread across several different credit cards, you may want to speak to a financial advisor. They’ll be able to help you make a plan to consolidate your debt or pay off the most pressing debts one by one.

Investing

Once you’ve saved for your short-term financial goals and paid off your debt, you may want to start investing to help you reach your medium-term financial goals. You can either manage investments yourself, invest in an index fund, or engage someone to manage your portfolio (normally this is only worth it if you have a large amount invested). Make sure you do plenty of research before investing your money anywhere.

Insurance

Your 30s may also be a time when you look seriously into different kinds of insurance, like life insurance, home and contents insurance, or income protection. Your choices here will depend on your budget, lifestyle, dependants, and priorities. Spend some time researching these options to find out if they’ll suit you.

Focus on building your career and income

Your 30s is a time to focus on career mobility. Applying for promotions and asking for raises should be a part of your plan, as well as training and upskilling. Put in this work now to reap financial rewards.

Start considering retirement… Well, planning for it, anyway

Although it’s still a long way off, by being prepared now and planning for it means you’ll have many more choices available to you in retirement and older age. Talk to your employer about your company’s pension plan, and what is the maximum contribution that your employer will “match”, which will double your investment. Over time, the compounding interest creates significant wealth, and the earlier you start, the greater the impact.

Other resources

This article was written buy Tracy Edgell-Horvath, Telus Health Client Care Counselor, MA, CEAP, AFC®, CHC®, is an accredited financial counsellor with a master's degree in counselling psychology.