Ep 31 | The Biggest Financial Blind Spot for 30-Somethings

Your 30s aren't just another chapter, they're the turning point. This decade is when the most important financial decisions of your life are made, from who you choose as a partner to how you handle big expenses like kids, career pivots, or real estate. It’s also when your money habits either set you up for long-term wealth… or quietly sabotage it.

In this episode, Priya breaks down why your 30s matter so much and how to take control now before lifestyle creep, outdated budgeting strategies, or relationship mismatches get in your way.

She also shares how couples can avoid building resentment over money (hint: you’ve got to stop making trade-offs based on vibes), why oversaving can be just as problematic as overspending, and the one mindset shift that will make your plan stick.

Tune Into This Episode to Hear:

• The massive impact your partner has on your financial future—and how to get aligned now

• Why your 30s are your financial fork in the road (and how to avoid costly detours)

• The hidden risks of oversaving in retirement accounts and emergency funds

• How to stop “winging it” and start using your money to build the life you actually want

Follow Priya Malani:

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THE STUFF OUR LAWYERS WANT US TO SAY: Stash Wealth is a Registered Investment Advisor. Content presented is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to make an offer or solicitation for any specific securities product, service, or strategy. Consult with a qualified investment adviser (that's us) before implementing any strategy. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. There…we said it.

Transcription

So stop making trade-offs based on vibes. Make your trade-offs based on real data, and that starts by knowing what you wanna accomplish. And the best time to think about it is in your thirties. You’ve got years ahead of you for compounding, taking advantage of investing, course correcting mistakes that you made in your twenties, resetting your money habits, and setting yourself up for long-term success.

Hey guys, Priya here. Welcome back to The F Word, the podcast for high-earning 30-somethings who are ready to stop winging it with their money and make it actually start working for them.

Today’s episode is about something that we talk about all the time at Stash Wealth: your thirties are the most financially defining decade of your life. You might not realize it yet, but this is not only the decade where the most important financial decisions of your life are being made, but the ones that will impact and shape the decades to come.

Alright, let’s get into it.

Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is: why your thirties? When it comes down to it, your twenties are excusable. Any mistakes you make in your twenties, you still have time to fix. Whereas when you hit your forties, it’s a lot harder to course correct.

So many decisions and money habits have been ingrained in your day-to-day life and practices that course correcting in your forties becomes very, very difficult.

So the thirties—not only are they a time when you can fix the mistakes you made in your twenties—but they’re also a time in your life where you’re making the most critical financial decisions that set us up for the rest of our life, right?

It’s a major inflection point.

So I said you’re making some of the biggest financial decisions in your life: maybe family, maybe partner, maybe job, maybe parent care, maybe lifestyle. They’re no longer the “someday” or “down the road” decisions. They’re the right now decisions.

Here’s a great example. Fidelity did a study that found that the person you marry has the single greatest long-term impact on your financial life. I was actually listening to a podcast the other day—Diary of a CEO. If you haven’t listened to those episodes, they’re awesome.

Steven Bartlett is the host, and he interviewed Kevin O’Leary. Kevin was talking about a book that he wrote a couple years ago where he essentially interviewed some of the biggest divorce attorneys in the world. And they found out that the number one cause of divorce wasn’t infidelity—90%, according to his research, was attributed to financial stress.

So picking the right partner—which usually happens in your twenties, thirties, maybe early forties—is absolutely vital to get right. Make sure they have their financial shit together, or make sure you get your financial shit together, together.

When you think about it, in a relationship you’re approaching… why do we get into a relationship? We get into a relationship so we can approach life as a team. So we can have a partner in crime—not only for raising a family, but for going out in the world and being able to accomplish things, do things, experience things together.

So your partner’s debt—not that debt is bad—but their debts, their habits, their mindset, their goals all directly shape your ability to build wealth.

You’re doing a lot of really big things in your thirties. You might be buying your first home, which is likely gonna be the biggest purchase of your life so far. Maybe you’re getting into a relationship with somebody who’s already bought real estate. Paying off student loans. Starting or growing a family.

Like I said—career pivot. Launching your own business. That’s a very common one. A lot of people decide that after their twenties, they want to be a consultant, work for themself, be their own boss. That definitely shapes your ability to store and grow wealth.

Another big one that kind of doesn’t get talked about until the time comes—managing aging parents or navigating an inheritance. And then this one happens quite naturally: upgrading your lifestyle. Whether it’s travel, your wardrobe, or your hobbies, all of a sudden, without a clear system, you are spending as much as you’re earning.

And how does that impact your opportunity when you’re in your thirties?

Okay, so it’s a lot and there’s no one path, but what you do in your thirties determines whether your money works for you or just goes to cover your bills.

So with that, I want you to think of your thirties as your financial fork in the road. It’s the opportunity to either stay on the right path or get on the right path.

The next thing I want to talk about is to go a little bit deeper into the effect your partner has on your ability to build wealth. This is one of the most impactful decisions you’ll make to impact your ability to grow and accumulate wealth—not just for the sake of accumulation, but also so it can allow you to achieve the lifestyle that you want to achieve, whether that’s an early retirement or an upgraded lifestyle, whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

If you don’t consider your partner and their money story, you’ll turn around in a few years and think, “Wow, I wish I thought about this sooner” or “I wish I gave the decision of the partner I pick the weight it deserves when it comes to their money habits.”

Not saying that you can’t marry someone that’s a hot mess with their money, but you’re gonna want to know the trade-offs.

So let’s go a little deeper into the relationship piece because relationships are emotional and money is emotional. That combo can just lead to a lot of very interesting things. It sounds a little unromantic, but at the end of the day, a partnership—a marriage, if you choose to go that route—is an alignment of resources. It’s the coming together of two people with the hopes that they’re stronger together, and that includes your financial potential.

I’m not saying marry for money, but I’m not not saying marry for money.

At Stash Wealth, we often remind people that the partner they pick will have more influence on their wealth than even their job title might.

It is very important to understand if you guys are aligned on your financial goals. The lifestyle goals dictate what your savings goals should be. We don’t believe in saving for the sake of saving—you shouldn’t just be dumping money into a savings account somewhere. Why is it? For a lifestyle you’re trying to achieve in the future? For some big financial goal like buying a house, putting kids into college, or early retirement?

There are many financial goals—we’ve seen a ton. We actually have a couple episodes where I talk about some of the most fun and interesting financial goals our clients are planning for. But needless to say, it is an important conversation to have and to understand whether you and your partner are aligned on the things that you guys want to accomplish and experience.

Another one—and this is kind of a big one—because I know we always see that one person loves to play the CFO in a relationship, but it is absolutely critical that both of you understand your financial plan.

If one of you is carrying the weight to execute and lead the conversations, it’s okay. The other person might say, “I’m not interested, I don’t want to get roped into this, you’re better at this than I am.” We see it all the time. That’s fine. But you should at least understand what decisions are being made and why. Even if you don’t want to participate in the execution of those decisions, just know that it’s important for both of you to understand what your plan is.

And on that same topic of a financial plan—the reason it’s so critical is because it helps you guys understand whether you are set up to win together or whether money is actually creating some silent tension that can mount and turn into the kind of stress that ultimately is insurmountable.

I give this example often, and I think it’s just a really easy one to relate to. I remember a long, long time ago, we had a couple—classic opposites attract. Spender married to the saver. And the saver was building up a ton of resentment against the partner. It was partially because the saver was saving because buying a home was a very important goal to them, and they couldn’t understand why the spender was just spending away their money without any regard for the fact that the idea of buying a home was really important to their partner.

Well, come to find out, they had never really shared the fact that buying a home was so important to them.

And I find this a lot—when one partner doesn’t know or isn’t aware of what the other partner’s goals are, where is the motivation to help? Obviously, why wouldn’t I buy another pair of shoes? That’s me. When I don’t know what my trade-offs are… now, if I realize, “Oh my gosh, my partner wants us to buy a home and I want that too—okay, wait, I am gonna think twice about where I’m spending my money.”

It’s so difficult to motivate yourself to do the proper financial thing when you don’t understand what the trade-offs are. And the easiest way to understand what the trade-offs are is to have a financial plan that spells out what the goals are. Is it buy a home in three years? Is it buy a ski house? Is it upgrade vacations so you guys can take bougier trips to Europe? Are you looking to support family members? Start a family? I mean, the list is endless.

But it is, again, very difficult when your partner is seemingly destroying your ability to do these things and—come to find out—it’s just as simple as telling them what you’re trying to accomplish.

So make sure that you’re set up to win together, and you’re not building up resentment or tension because you haven’t articulated what your goals are. And it’s important to understand what your partner’s goals are.

You have to share what you want. And then—obviously very romantic—you guys need to talk about what your joint goals are. What do you want to accomplish as a couple? Because joint goals actually force an honest conversation about why you guys are even saving in the first place.

To wrap that up, make sure you have an honest conversation about goals and values around money habits. Assess what your resources are before you decide to join your entire life together.

I’ve said this before, and I’m not necessarily proud of it, but we have seen couples break up during the Stash Plan process—which is our proprietary planning process that we take 30-somethings through. Not the best feeling, but then again, I guess there is a silver lining to suggest that you find out you’re not aligned sooner rather than later.

Okay, and the last thing about your thirties being absolutely critical when it comes to setting yourself up for financial freedom, financial success—however you define it—is that this is the time, and I’ve talked about this, where kids come into the picture, your careers are stepping up, and your lifestyles are escalating as well.

You might be wondering: are you living a lifestyle you can actually afford?

So, having kids—I cannot emphasize enough how having children changes everything, including your finances. Especially your finances.

There’s diapers, there’s daycare, there’s private school, there’s the deposit for private school. The cost of raising a child is high, which makes the cost of not planning ahead even higher.

In your thirties, we see major career growth for people. They go from making good money to making more money than they ever imagined. And what goes up with it? Their lifestyle, right?

Lifestyle inflation, lifestyle creep, whatever you want to call it—we see it all the time.

One of the biggest questions people will ask us is: “Are we living a lifestyle we can actually afford? Can I do this? And what’s it costing me?”

Without a system, you will inevitably overspend without realizing it. You might also oversave without realizing it. We’ve seen so many high earners stash away so much money into their retirement accounts—locking it away. They can’t touch it for decades, completely shortchanging the leverage they have in the short term.

So it’s not just about overspending. It’s also about oversaving.

Or—related, but kind of even worse in my opinion than oversaving in a retirement account—is sitting on cash “just in case.” Emergency fund, whatever you call it. Instead of investing, stockpiling cash because you don’t know how much you actually need in case of emergency, or how to think about that strategically.

At the end of the day, you should have a stockpile of cash. But that should be your first line of defense, not your only line of defense. And if you’re just stashing away as much cash as humanly possible because it’s your only line of defense, you’re robbing yourself of your wealth potential.

So stop making trade-offs based on vibes. Make your trade-offs based on real data, and that starts by knowing what you want to accomplish. The best time to think about it is in your thirties. You’ve got years ahead of you for compounding, taking advantage of investing, course correcting mistakes that you made in your twenties, resetting your money habits, and setting yourself up for long-term success.

A lot of times what we’re doing is just helping clients get real about what their money can do for them—building in that lifestyle cushion, that guilt-free spending, as well as long-term strategy. And then ultimately helping them avoid the trap of making decisions from stress instead of clarity.

So if you’re in your thirties, now’s the time to get your financial shit together.

If you felt overwhelmed by how many financial decisions you’re facing right now, know this: financial advisors are no longer just reserved as a smart decision super-rich people are able to make. You are in the most defining decade of your financial life, and there is no shame in calling in help—especially help that’s so specialized it gets you richer even quicker.

Before I let you go, I want to tell you about a quick study done by Vanguard a couple years ago called the Advisor Alpha Study. This is a very widely cited research study that was conducted about the wealth management industry, and specifically the value of a financial advisor.

That’s what “Alpha” is—what is the value an advisor can bring to a client relationship?

And it surfaced that following wealth management best practices with an advisor can yield 3% in net returns. So, like, after fees, the average advisor can deliver about 3% in added value. And that comes from the following best practices:

The first one is behavioral coaching. It is estimated that one and a half percent per year gets added in helping clients avoid making emotional decisions, like panic selling during a downturn.

Portfolio construction is the second one—estimated to add an additional one-ish percent per year. And I’m not talking about stock picking. I’m talking about focusing on strategic aspects of wealth management, like asset allocation and asset location.

And then the third best practice is actual wealth management—estimated at delivering an additional about a half percent per year. That encompasses things like rebalancing or drawdown strategies, which you don’t have to worry about until later, because you’re in your thirties and you’re not drawing down—you’re accumulating.

This study was done assuming a comparison with the average individual investor managing their own portfolio in the “right” way.

I’m not saying you have to use an advisor, but I think a lot of people out there are talking about the fact that advisors charge a fee—and they do—but you get something for it.

If you want help, if you want someone to help you build, if you want the right plan, you don’t have to do it alone or in the dark.

Alright guys, we’ve hit the Best Bite portion of the podcast, where I talk about my absolute best bite of the last week.

This one I’m kind of scared to talk about because this restaurant is so fabulous, I really don’t want anybody to know about it—but I’m sharing it with you.

The restaurant is in, I guess I would call it, the West Village. It is called Quique Crudo, and it’s walk-in only. There’s maybe 20 seats, and it’s mostly seafood—the freshest seafood. It was so amazing. Every dish I got was fantastic.

But my absolute best bite of the last week was a dish called the torta… I’m gonna butcher this… the tort de haba? Tor deba? Tor deba?

It was a little flat torte—what’s a torte? Tortilla?—a crispy little chip with the most delicious crab salad on it. Sliced radishes, a little bit of avocado puree, some chilies on there. It was so good.

I have to go back ASAP. I can’t wait to go back. Enjoy.

Okay, if this episode helped you rethink your priorities or just helped you feel seen, share it with a friend and hit follow so you don’t miss what’s coming next.

Alright, thanks for listening to The F Word. We’ll see you next time.