3 Ways to Get Your Brokerage Account Balance to $50,000 by 30

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Want a $50,000 brokerage account balance? Read on to see how to pull off that feat by age 30. 

A $50,000 brokerage account balance might seem like the sort of thing you could attain by age 50. But believe it or not, you may be able to grow your balance to $50,000 much sooner than that — by age 30, in fact.

If your account balance is currently $0, you might assume that’s impossible. But thankfully, it’s not. If you follow these steps, you could easily end up sitting on $50,000 by the time your 30th birthday rolls around.

1. Start investing as soon as you begin collecting a regular paycheck

A lot of people don’t start working full-time until they graduate college. And that may not happen until you turn 21 or 22. But if you want to end up with $50,000 in your brokerage account by age 30, you may need to commit to investing a portion of your earnings from the moment you begin collecting a steady paycheck.

The good news, though, is that you don’t necessarily have to part with a lot of money on a monthly basis to get to $50,000 by 30. Over the past 50 years, the stock market has delivered an average annual 10% return, as measured by the performance of the S&P 500 index. If you invest $365 a month starting at age 22 and continue to do so until age 30, you’ll end up with a $50,000 balance if your portfolio, too, delivers a 10% annual return.

2. Load up on stocks across a range of industries

A diversified portfolio won’t guarantee that you’ll manage to snag an average yearly 10% return on your investments. But you’ll be more likely to see your portfolio match the stock market’s performance over the past 50 years if you maintain a broad investment mix.

You can go about that in a couple of ways. You could buy stocks across a range of market sectors and keep tabs on them. But that’s a lot of work. So a better bet may be to buy shares of an S&P 500 ETF, or exchange-traded fund. This way, you get to invest in that index on a whole without doing a lot of legwork.

3. Resist the urge to tap your brokerage account for unplanned bills

To grow your brokerage account balance from $0 to $50,000 by age 30, you’ll need to do more than just fund that account steadily. You’ll also need to make sure you’re not tapping your brokerage account when unexpected expenses arise.

To that end, make sure to maintain a solid emergency fund. If you make a point to keep enough money in the bank to cover a few months’ worth of essential bills, you’ll be less likely to cash out investments in a pinch.

Funding your emergency savings should actually take precedence over funding your brokerage account. And it might take you a couple of years to get to that point. So if that’s the case, know this — you can still get to $50,000 by age 30 even if you get a slightly later start.

If you first begin investing at age 24, it’ll take $540 a month to reach $50,000 by age 30, assuming the same 10% return in your portfolio as earlier. But if you’re able to make that happen, you can hit that goal even if you only have six years to do it.

A $50,000 brokerage account by age 30 is quite an impressive thing to pull off. But if you play your cards right, you might manage to hit that goal — or even exceed it.

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