How to Become a Millionaire Starting in Your 30s

If you feel like you're playing catch up in your 30s, you're actually not alone. 36% of people in this age group say they don't feel financially confident. And this makes so much sense to me. It's pretty much the decade where everything lands on your plate all at once. You might be starting a family, buying a house, or pushing forward in your career. At the same time, you're juggling debt, higher living costs, and the pressure to save for the future. I feel like with so much going on, it's easy to feel like you're spinning around and you're not progressing at the right pace. And yeah, I've been there. I'm currently 38, and at the start of my 30s, I spent a long time feeling like no matter how hard I worked, money was always slipping through my fingers. But what helped me the most was focusing on a few clear milestones. Once I started hitting these, I could finally stop stressing and trust that I was on the right path. And that's exactly what I want to share with you today. The six milestones that you need to hit in your 30s if you want to become a millionaire. If you're new here, hi, I'm Steve. I used to be a middle school math teacher, and now I dedicate my time helping people get their finances on track. The first milestone is to figure out and to keep track of your net worth. To be honest, for the longest time, I felt like this was something that only older people had to worry about. But once I hit 30, I realized that this was exactly the right time to start paying attention to this. Okay, so what is your net worth? Your net worth is simply the value of what you own minus what you owe. In other words, basically it's assets minus liabilities equals your net worth. Let's say that you own a, I don't know, a secondhand car worth about $10,000, and you've got a home office setup valued at $2,000. On top of that, maybe you have $30,000 across your retirement fund and emergency savings account. And really altogether, that's around $42,000 in assets. Now you could technically go through every possession that you own and calculate its value, but I mean, no one really has all that time and it's going to take a lot of days. Instead, I recommend only including items worth more than $500-ish, okay? Then creating a miscellaneous category with an estimated total for everything else. If you do it this way, you're going to get a more accurate picture without losing too much time. Okay, so now let's take a look at what you owe. Maybe you've got, I don't know, like $1,000 left in student loans, $500 in credit card balances, and a new sofa that you finance for, I don't know, like $500. So in total, that's $2,000 in liabilities. So if you subtract your liabilities from your assets, your net worth comes to $40,000. So now you may be wondering, what's a good net worth in your 30s? Well, according to Investopedia, the median net worth for people ages 35-44 is about $135,000. And for those under 35, it's closer to $40,000. This means that your net worth can grow quickly during your 30s and if you're on the lower end right now, that's perfectly normal. Honestly, I believe that just having a positive net worth at the start of your 30s is already a big win. We're all working with different incomes and life responsibilities, so there's no single number that's perfect for everyone. The important thing is that your net worth moves in the right direction over time. When I calculated my net worth for the first time, I was pretty disappointed to see that it was in the low thousands. But that moment was an eye-opener. It forced me to take a closer look to see where all my money was going, where I could cut back on unnecessary spending, and to focus on building up my assets. Since then, I made it a habit to check my net worth pretty much every week, especially after I entered my 30s. Watching that number climb slowly at first, but then more noticeably later on, has been one of the most motivating parts of my financial journey. You see, once your net worth reaches a million dollars, you officially become a millionaire, which is why tracking this milestone is also an easy way to monitor your progress. Your next milestone is to take control of your credit. Having a strong credit can save you tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments, freeing up money that you can invest towards your first million. So, the best place to start is by checking your credit score. In the US, this usually refers to your FICO score, which ranges from 300 to 850. Generally speaking, a score of, say, 670 or higher is considered good, and it comes with long-term benefits, such as lower interest rates on car loans, personal loans, and most importantly, mortgages. For example, someone with a good score could qualify for a 6% mortgage rate, while someone with a poor score could be charged for, I don't know, 9% or higher. On a $250,000 home loan, this difference adds up to tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan. Now, you might be thinking, okay, like, I'm not even looking for a loan right now, so why should I even care? Well, the reality is that improving your credit score takes months, sometimes years, so your 30s are the perfect time to get this in order. On average, Americans buy their first home at around the age of 38, which means that the work you put into building your credit score today can save you thousands when you're ready to get your loan. So how do you improve your credit score? Well, the biggest factor is payment history, which makes up like 35% of your FICO score. You want to make sure that you pay off your bills, your statement balances in full every single month, okay? Because this is really the fastest way to build your credit. The next big factor is credit utilization, which is basically how much of your available credit you're using. For example, let's say that you get a credit card and you have a $5,000 limit, and you currently owe $1,500. This means that your utilization is going to be 30%. Why? Because $1,500 divided by $5,000 is 30%. To some lenders, staying below 30% is a good sign that you can manage your credit responsibly. But based on my personal experience where I quickly grew my credit score to over 800, I believe it's better to keep your credit utilization ratio under 10%. So if your credit card gives you a $20,000 limit, you don't want to spend more than $2,000. Look, having a little bit of debt isn't always necessarily bad. It's actually sometimes necessary to build your credit history. But there is a big difference between manageable debts, like a credit card balance that you can pay off monthly, and bad debt like high interest balances that keep growing. Listen, if you're carrying a lot of bad debts, you have to make it your priority to reduce it in your 30s. By eliminating bad debts and building your score, you'll position yourself to qualify for major loans down the line. By the time you hit your 40s, aim to have a consistent record of paying off your credit card in full every single month. And I promise you, this habit is going to protect your wealth and accelerate your path to becoming a millionaire. Now, once you've figured out your net worth and started paying down your liabilities, the next step is to build your assets, starting with, and I say this all the time, your emergency fund. This is money that you want to make sure that you keep in a high yield savings account, where it's safe, liquid, and separate from your regular spending. The goal here is to cover three to six months of essential expenses, but this can be even as high as, say, 12 months, which is my personal preference. For example, if you're non-negotiable, such as your housing, utilities, groceries, insurance, and even your transportation add up to $3,000 per month, then you're going to want to set aside at least $9,000 to $18,000 in your emergency fund. Or again, if you want to be a little bit more on the conservative, cautious side, you're an entrepreneur like myself, then you can even bump it up to, say, $36,000. You see, sadly, most Americans don't even have this cushion. Apparently, only 47% of people in their 30s and early 40s have an emergency fund at all. This means that the majority of 30-something-year-olds are just one step back away from taking on high-interest debts or draining their retirement savings. And I really can't stress this enough on how important it is to have an emergency fund in your 30s. This is the decade where you're often juggling maybe your career, your family, and maybe even buying a home later on. And having a plan B is what keeps you from big financial trouble. And I promise you, it's also going to keep you from slipping backward and eating away at the million dollars that you're working towards. So I have this friend, and just over a few months ago, his car broke down, his washing machine flooded his entire apartment, and he was demoted at work. But because he didn't have an emergency fund, the only option he did was to move back with his mom and dad until he could recover financially. Listening to his story, all I could think about was, oh, thank God, I have an emergency fund myself. And if he'd even saved a few months of expenses, he could have weathered through that storm without delaying his shot at hitting his $1 million by the time he's 40 or 50 years old. So what's the lesson here? You don't want to wait. You can even start small by even saving $50 or even $100 a month, but make this a priority. Yes, your emergency fund can save you during sudden life changes, but most importantly, it'll teach you how to manage little money now so you can manage your million dollars later. The next milestone is to invest immediately and automatically. One of the biggest traps that people fall in their 30s is that they believe that they don't earn enough to start investing. But it's this exact mindset that prevents them from reaching their million dollar status. Like what I said before with your emergency fund, you want to make sure that you start now, not later. And you want to make this process as frictionless as possible by automating the entire process so you don't get the chance of second guessing yourself or spend the money on something that you know that you don't really need. For example, you could set up a recurring transfer of just $50 a month straight into an investment account, and from there it grows on autopilot. So which brokerage accounts do beginners typically want to start investing in? Well, generally for most people, they want to max out their contributions for their tax advantage retirement accounts. The IRS knows that retirement accounts come with big tax advantages, so they put on these really strict limits on how much you can contribute each year. For example, if you invest in a normal brokerage account, you're going to owe a lot of taxes on dividends, interest, and capital gains whenever you sell your investments. But in retirement accounts like a 401k or some sort of IRA, those taxes are either deferred or avoided completely, which means that your money compounds much faster. If you're employed full-time, you probably have a workplace plan like maybe a 401k. If you work at a school or maybe at a non-profit, you might have something like a 403b because that's what I had when I was a public school teacher, but it pretty much works the same way. Right now, the annual limit for 401k contributions is $23,000 if you're under 50. So if you do the math, that's about $1,916 per month if you want to max it out. And remember, this doesn't include any of the employer match, which is basically free money on top of your contributions. The most frequent question that I get is, Steve, can I have a 401k or a 403b and open another retirement account like an IRA? And the answer is yes, absolutely. You can open up another IRA or individual retirement account, and this is pretty much what I did back when I was a teacher. I had a 403b and a Roth IRA simultaneously. So there are two main types of IRAs. The first is a traditional IRA, where your contributions are tax deductible now. So you save taxes right now, but you're going to have to pay taxes later when you withdraw your money during retirement. The second is a Roth IRA, which is the most popular accounts for most people or specifically for a lot of my followers, where your contributions are made with tax money now, but withdrawals in retirement are completely tax free. During your thirties, each type of IRA has a contribution limit of $7,000 per year or about $583 per month. Income limits apply for the Roth, but most people in their thirties can still contribute at least partially. So if you want to see if you can contribute into a Roth IRA, you can just Google it or even ask ChatGPT what the rules are. So just zooming out, if you're employed, you could contribute up to $30,000 plus per year across your 401k and IRA. If you're self-employed, you have options like a solo 401k, a SEP IRA, or even a simple IRA, which is what I have with similar or even higher limits. By maxing out your retirement accounts, you can save thousands in taxes and build long-term security. According to Fidelity, you should aim to save at least 1x of your annual salary by age 30, 2x by 35, and 3x by 40. So let's do some math. For example, if you earn $80,000 per year, you'd want to have at least $80,000 saved by 30, $160,000 by 35, and $240,000 by 40. This might sound kind of daunting, but remember, if you keep maxing out your contributions, it won't be long until you reach your first million. Now, if any of this has you scratching your head and stressing about the future, you're in the right place. I put together a beginner's investing class that's helped over 50,000 people go from confused to confident about their money. In the class, I'm going to show you everything on how to choose your first investment to avoiding the three most common mistakes every beginner makes. I'll leave the link in the description for you to sign up if you're interested. The fifth milestone is simple to say but harder to do. You need to increase your income. So imagine that you're 30 years old working as a copywriter at a marketing agency earning $4,000 per month. Each year, you wait for a raise, but your boss keeps saying that the company is struggling so there won't be any increases this year. And this goes on for the next 10 years. Meanwhile, if inflation is say 3% per year, groceries that cost you $300 per month at 30 will cost you closer to $400 at 40. And rent typically rises 3% to 5% annually. So if you are paying, I don't know, like $1,200 at 30, you might be paying closer to $1,800 at 40. So while your paycheck stays the same, your expenses climb and by 40, you're actually worse off. Why? Well, it's because the money you could have saved or invested had to be used to cover your creeping cost of living. A friend of mine worked at the same company for almost a decade or so without ever getting a raise. And by the time he finally switched jobs, he realized he missed out on years of higher earnings that could have helped him hit his first million dollars sooner. That's why in your 30s, you can't afford to stay stuck. If your company refuses to even give you cost of living adjustments, you need to consider moving on. And really, job hopping often comes with a 10% to 20% pay bump. So it can be one of the fastest ways to keep your income growing. But don't just stop there. You should also add extra income streams. You need to find smart ways to earn outside of your 9 to 5. This could be freelancing in your fields or maybe picking up consulting work or even monetizing something that you already enjoy. If we go back to our copywriter example, this might mean offering social media packages to small businesses or writing product descriptions for e-commerce shops. And if, for example, if you're into motorbikes, you could run weekend group rides for tourists, earning money while doing something that you love. But really, neither job hopping or building extra income streams will work if you don't level up your skills. Why would a company pay you more than another candidate if you're not bringing more to the table? And why would clients choose you over-established freelancers if you're not offering something extra? Ultimately, how much you earn depends on how determined you are to keep growing. Your 30s are the perfect time to take advantage of your energy and invest in yourself because every skill that you build up today has a potential to boost your income tomorrow. You gotta look for ways to differentiate yourself from your peers who are essentially your competitors. And like what I say in a lot of my other videos, you don't want to be afraid to use AI because it is going to give you an edge. AI can handle routine tasks like managing your calendar, polishing your emails, or upgrading your LinkedIn profile. On top of that, and I think this is the most powerful part with AI, you can use it as a tutor to teach you new skills that make you more valuable. And this is something that I use every single day. I literally have a screen on my desk that is specifically used for ChatGBT. Let's use another example and say, for instance, you're a newsletter designer. Learning some basic HTML through AI tools could turn you into someone who can both design and code newsletters instantly raising your market value. And like what Alex Hermosi once said, work like your life depends on it because it does. That same intensity should drive how you approach your income in your 30s because how hard you push now will directly determine how your future is going to turn out. Our sixth milestone is to start surrounding yourself with the right people. A large-scale study in the UK found that teenagers from low-income families who form friendships with wealthier peers went on to earn significantly more as adults, about $5,000 more per year on average compared to those who primarily had low-income friends. The researchers suggested that exposure to different social and financial norms play a powerful role in shaping long-term outcomes. Now, I'm not saying that you should scream people before determining if you want to spend more time with them or become their friends because of course, that's going to be ridiculous. The point is that people who manage their money well often have habits and mindsets that rub off on those around them. By spending more time with financially responsible people, you're more likely to absorb those habits yourself. For example, let's say that you have one group of friends that loves to go shopping every single weekend and they spend a couple hundred dollars every Saturday, every Sunday without even thinking twice while another group keeps a stricter budget and prioritizes investing. If you're tagging along with the first group, chances are you're going to pick up the same spending habits. But if you spend more time with the second group, I promise you, you're most likely going to become more disciplined too. So why is this? It's because we just want to fit in. If we're in a friend group and we do something that is strange or different from them, then yeah, we're going to be the outcast. We want to be part of a community where we do the same thing as everyone else. We just want to fit in. Who you spend your time with absolutely matters. Your circle can either pull you closer to or push you further away from your goal of reaching a million dollars. And yes, while income can be a factor, this is really about values. You want to surround yourself with people that share your money goals or better yet, those with stronger financial habits that you can learn from. If you take anything away from this video, it really just comes down to you hitting these three money pillars. Saving, earning, and investing. That's it. I became a millionaire in my early 30s primarily because I didn't spend very much at all. I had my teaching and my tutoring business and I invested, say, around 50 to 80% of my paycheck into the stock market. And if you're tired of figuring out how to invest and want to start today, I highly encourage you to join my investing class here.