Financial milestones to hit by 30!

I have seen several financial bloggers cover financial milestones one needs to hit by age thirty. Even though I’ve been enjoying the 30s for a couple of years by now, I thought I’d follow their example and see if I hit any of financial milestones along the way.

Please keep in mind I’m a financial underdog because I came to this country in my 20s, spent a number of years working minimum wage jobs, and had to learn personal finance on the go. My wife is an immigrant too and came to Canada in 2006. Because of this we might be behind on things.

What about you? Have you hit these milestones yourself?

I have been so for a very long time. Sometimes I miss living with my parents. Adult life has too many responsibilities. You have to go to work, pay bills, act all mature…What a drag!

 

We have no debt outside of our mortgage. We are currently working on accelerating our mortgage repayment but it’s still a very long way to go. Unless I bump into Morgan Freeman tomorrow who wants to give me large sum of money for my opinion of his work (mostly positive), we probably have another 10 years before it’s fully repaid. This makes me a sad panda.

Don’t borrow money, people! Debt means less money in your pocket. Don’t you want to have more money?

It’s been a while since I had to pay overdraft fees due to shortage of money although recently I was hit with NSF charges due to my own stubbornness.

Now more than ever I’ll be watching our bank accounts to make sure we never even come close to dipping below the line.

 

Because we’re not planning on ever borrowing money again, credit history is kind of useless to us. Although, out of curiosity I checked our credit score for the very first time in my life recently, and somehow it’s sitting at “GOOD”.

 

Roger that! Currently holding index funds, some dividend paying stocks, and some exempt market investment products such as our solar energy investment and mortgage investment corporation shares.

 

Have one. Tempted to use it for other means like investing, but my wife keeps telling me to leave it alone!

 

• Life insurance and critical illness insurance for both of us – check.
• Content insurance for our home – check.
• Car insurance – check.

 

We track our spending using Mint.com. It gives us a snapshot of everything that is happening in our bank accounts within seconds. Usually, I check them every day just to stay on top of things. My wife keeps telling me I check it way too often.

If you’re looking for ways to monitor your finances, it’s a great web service. It’s absolutely free, automatic, and very easy to use. Once you’ve set up all accounts, it automatically downloads all transactions and you just have to sort them once in a while.

 

If you are in your 20s or 30s, how are you doing with these financial milestones? Please see the full list of 30 financial milestones one should consider hitting by age 30 by visiting the full version of this story at http://snip.ly/OcWO

 

Also, let’s chat on twitter: http://twitter.com/MoneyRamblings

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.