Starting at 40? Here’s the Exact Investing Plan I’d Use

I'm 35, live in London, 3 years ago I almost died when i caught covid snd developed pneumonia age 31 at the time, this happened after a year of nationwide lockdowns living on basic universal income of £400pm, the covid meant I couldnt work for a further 6 months and had to use my savings. I've since worked incredibly hard on an average wage and saved 35k, however despite the efforts, I feel like eveything is far too slow like im running on the spot. I know my budget and can just about save £400pm

I worked minimum wage for 3.5 years from 2021. For 3.5 years, I worked 70hrs a week. Lots of OT pay. I put 90-95% of after tax/bills into the Mag7 throughout the bear market. It has grown to over $320,000 today. lol

I need to focus on increasing my income. I’m 43 and making $15.20 an hour. Just the rent alone is $1,000. I talked to my ex, who's a lawyer, and we talked about me being a notary work. I have a spreadsheet and allocate every cent. I sometimes have to borrow money from family to make ends meet. But I'm starting today. I’m also going back to school to get 2 degrees (with financial aid of course) a physics degree and a computer science degree. This will be the very first time I have a college degree. I’m investing in myself.

I’m 43 and I’m starting today 😊

42 today, $116k in my 401(k). Increasing my contribution to 20% from 15%.

My problem is i don't know what to put my investment money in. Currently staying out of bonds given the current rates

I turn 38 on May 28th I'm STARTING NOW

I am 47 and I'm starting today

This is a very good video. For the first few years of investing I only bought Government bonds because for me I wanted that stable cashflow. I used dividends to treat my self instead of reinvesting or buying an Index because it made me not feel guilty for spending the dividends and it made me want to invest more when I got paid from my working income.

With the bill part I would recommend that if you have been with the company for a while you could say that you have been a long time valuable/loyal customer and you would love to say with them and ask what can they do for you. You can then ask if they can do any better and if a different company has a special offer or better price you might be able to say that too and see if they will match or beat that.

Why so much cursing and aggressive?

Are you using an investment firm to help you with investments?

I'm 31, I started last year with 100K

I’m 40 and I’m starting today!

I am 33, I am starting today .

I started a couple of months ago age 46

Lol, according to your photo, everyone is already millionaires

Too bad your always bashing crypto because your not familiar with it. Eventhough when looking at btc it has had consistent growth (not unlike the sp500) in the last 10 years ... but only with different % almost at its ATH so that means that everyone that has bought it in the past is up ...

I'm 34, and I'm starting today!

If someone hasn't started investing even in their late 30s and early 40s, their guilt free spending should not be above 20%. They should use the rest of the 35% to invest instead. I started investing since last year in my mid 30s.

I’m 45 and I’m starting today

What happens if your employer only matches up to 50% of the first 5% you invest. Should I still max out my 401k? Or should that money go to a Roth IRA?

Just turned 40 this year. I got a late start on my financial journey about 6 years ago. I opened my first brokerage account and started funding an account with an automated 250 dollars weekly deposit that I have kept up with religiously during that time. I make about 90k of gross income annually, am a renter, and have no debt. Over the 6 years I've been investing, I have an annualized return rate of just just over 11%. I got pretty lucky with the market dip during COVID and realize that I am probably not going to always see returns of 10-20% like I have over the last couple years, but putting my money to work for me to secure my future has been one of the best things I have ever done in my life.

I am 44 and I started at 25, but my income was low from $14.00 per hour to now I am making $30.92 + a business BUT the cost of living has risen however I refinanced my home in 2021 at 2.5% and I haven't had a car payment in 10 years. I took 5k out of my 401k to buy a house in 2018. I am 44 with a little over 52k with employee match of 5%

I'm 48 and my wife and I started January of 2025. We've locked in our emergency fund, working on a vacation fund for the kids this summer and looking to start funding my roth ira, a secondary investment dividend fund and pay off my only debt left, student loans. We got this.

I'm 52, and I'm starting today.

I'm 96 and getting onto this bandwagon.

Starting at 40 may not seem ideal to some people, but I tell you, it’s definitely not too late. You just have to be more strategic. Loved the point about focusing on cash flow and growth. Too many plans just assume we’ll work forever or hit 8% every year. Reality’s messier.

Invest or pay off mortgage first?

I started investing in 2020.

While watching this video, I moved $1200 into my emergency savings and finally brought it up to 10k. I've never seen that much money in my account! I'm going to now reallocate what I was putting in that savings plus a little extra 😊 into an IRA. Thank you for giving me the push to make the move! It's been a long time coming.

I’m 47 and I started an emergency fund for the first time two weeks ago. I’m also going to pay up my Credit Card Debt completely in a few weeks. I’m starting my RRSP ASAP and I was told I’d get an employer match. Hope everything goes well!

I'm 36 am I'm starting over today. (Liquidated all of my 401ks & savings to feed an opiate & cocaine addiction). Pledge to be as aggressive about building wealth as I was to get dope!

I came to the USA a few years ago. After my husband (48) passed, I paid off his debts and funeral costs. (We had 2 small kids too). The little bit I had left I invested, for fear of my kids losing the only other parent left. Then I started working full time and started a 401k. I feel behind and very far from retirement. I rent and my debt is only on a car for my son (less than 10k), who goes to school. My only thing is, gambling and risking money makes me feel VERY uneasy. Thanks for the videos. It's hard to find good financial advice in the era of social media.

I am also late to the FI game. And after many yt videos and some books, I arrived to a happy conclusion, which is, I don’t need to play the ‘catch up” game forever, instead I only need to invest aggressively until I reach my “point of diminishing returns”, in my case this is about 5 years. At this point, my money will grow more from itself than from what I put in every month. This is also the point where you can slow down with the aggressive investing.
I started 2 months ago, I had some nice savings and no debt, I just never knew about the magic of investing. Being financially literate is so important! If you are young, take advantage of it!

I'm 38 and I'm starting today.

I’m 39 and I’m starting today.

It’s always earn more

I am 48 and I started last year.
401K, VTI Roth IRA with Vanguard, Brokerage account investing in SCHD with Schwab and an emergency fund of 1 year in a HY savings account with a 4.40%
I own 2 properties.
My plan is to retire at 62

I’m 45, and I’m starting today. I live in Europe (Poland), so we have different options, yet I found your video very helpful and informative.
First of all, I’ve realized that I’m actually debt-free. Secondly, I’ve already built not only a financial cushion but also accumulated a decent amount of savings. Great — now it’s time to get started. Recently, I also realized that I was raised to focus mainly on saving, not investing. So saving money has never been an issue for me, but I was quite convinced that I had missed my opportunity and that saving was my only option. Thanks to you, I’ve decided to take a chance and use some of the tax-free investment options available in my country to grow my future funds. I may choose less risky strategies, but still — I’ll let my money work for me.

I'm 32 and I stared today

Appreciate your help!

Earn more to invest more 😎

44 —my bday is today!—starting today

investment account?

A house where do you live in is not an asset. Neither a car. These don't generate any regular income, but the opposite, have cost. Only the house might keep up its value with inflation.

Key to building wealth isn't necessarily higher salary, it's cutting costs and living below your means. I'm not from the US so the numbers may differ in the US. But I work in a grocery store for only the crappy total of 3400$ a month (2.6k after taxes). My country's average income is 5600$. I didn't have enough for any savings. I thought. But once I cut all unnecessary crap I ended up being able to save 1200$ a month. That's like 38% of my net income into savings. No alcohol, no partying, no smoking, no unnecessary luxury items, no eating out, cheap food in bulk. Sure. Living a spartan frugal life does suck. But the financial freedom for your future is worth it.

48er here (living in Germany). Started 2018 with almost no savings, no emergency fund and over 30k of debt. First I started getting an overview over my money flow. Then started to reduce my debt month by month while creating an emergency fund and also a portofolio (with a really small amount of money first). I started to work with Budgets (with a google sheet first and a budget app shortly after) and working with several accounts.
Two years later I was 100% debt free (man, what a great feeling), had an emergency fund (3 months of my income) and kept the portofolio growing.
Now 7 years later, I am still debt free, having around 100k in savings/portfolio, can have fun, spend money but still working with my budgets and the google sheet on a (almost) daily basis. So no more overspending since years!
Only thing still open is some kind of a side hustle. Probably I should do a german YT channel like this one. ;)

So everything Ramit says is working. The only thing you have to change is your mindset. Every little step counts. Every Dollar/Euro/whatever counts. Will it be easy? Probably not (especially in the beginning), but it will be worth.

So Start today and you will not regret.

So edgy because he swears! I'll follow his advice!

41 and started a few years ago (sorry, wasn’t today!) Started by hitting milestone 1: paying off all debt - then I GOT TO WORK!

I set up a diversified dividend investment portfolio in my retirement and savings, and used the dividends to fuel each accounts respective growth (vs. reinvesting into the same dividend stocks).

So my savings and retirement each have their own income streams and are growing independently of me via monthly dividends without taking any money from my side gig!

Then shifted my side gig to pay for my fixed costs and I was able to quit my 9-5 (it was toxic to the point of affecting physical health).


Still can’t afford to cruise around in a Rolls Royce. But I live in my own “luxury” in that I can afford to savor and live in every moment, on my time.

I'm 40. I have a million dollar house paid off, but little savings and a low income. My wife doesn't want to sell our home but I want to invest. Any advice?