5 smart money moves to make in your 40s

It’s never too late to get smarter! If you feel like you’ve fallen behind financially, your 40s might be the ideal time to catch up. Consider these moves:

Buy a house

If you don’t own one already, your 40s are the time to start building equity for your retirement.

By the time you’re in your 40s, odds are your family isn’t growing any more and you won’t need to upsize in a few years. And the more you earn, the more you’ll appreciate the mortgage-interest tax deduction.

Also read: 18 movies every entrepreneur should watch

Learn how to fix stuff

It will make home ownership a bit less costly if you can repair leaks, install light fixtures, patch walls and do other basic jobs yourself.

There are online instructional videos for many such projects - I’ve gone as far as fixing appliances with no special knowledge or tools.

Hold onto that aging car

A few years without car payments will free up money for your house, which is a better thing to spend it on.

If your house doesn’t need anything, pump extra cash into your retirement fund and resist the urge to keep up with your neighbors’ wasteful spending on luxury automobiles.

Also read: How Aussies can easily save $2,600 per year

Gamble on a few investments

Most of your savings should be invested conservatively, according to sound guidelines for retirement planning.

But using a small portion of your savings to trade stocks or ETFs will help you learn about markets and get a lot smarter about money.

Once you lose a few bucks, you’ll suddenly get determined never to make that mistake again.

But never put more than 5% of your savings at risk.

Also read: Get ready for the Aussie dollar to fall

Go into business with your kids

I loaned my son a couple hundred bucks to get started on a sneaker-trading business during the summer.

He paid me back and earned a profit. I

got to help him learn a little bit about money, while I learned something about sneakers—and my son.

That was money well-invested—even though I didn’t charge him interest.