Tips and Tricks for Investing

Most investing advice is either too vague to use or too complicated to stick with. These are the habits that actually move the needle, with the numbers behind them and what each one looks like if you're in the TSP.

Automate your contributions. Take the decision out of it, and the habit survives bad months.

In the TSP, you already have the best tool for this. You set your contribution as a percentage of base pay in myPay, and it comes out before the money ever hits your account. Because it's a percentage, it grows on its own every time your pay does. Outside the TSP, set up a standing transfer from checking to your brokerage the day after payday. I walk through my own setup in Automate the Money You Don't Trust Yourself to Move. I started the TSP later than I should have, and that's the one I'd go back and fix first (what I'd change).

Give yourself part of every raise. The 2026 military pay raise was 3.8%, effective January 1. On $4,000 a month in base pay, that's $152 more a month. If you move your TSP contribution up 1% the same day, about $42 goes to your future and you still keep about $110 of the raise. You never miss money you never got used to having. Do it with every raise and promotion, and your savings rate climbs without a single hard month.

Reinvest dividends, at least early on. Compounding works faster when payouts go straight back into buying more shares.

In the TSP, there's no switch to flip. The C, S, and I Funds count dividend income as part of their earnings, so it's already built into the share price. In a regular brokerage account, look for a setting called dividend reinvestment, or DRIP, and turn it on for each fund or stock. One thing to know: in a regular account, reinvested dividends are still taxable that year, even though you never saw the cash. Later, once you want the income to live on or cover bills, you can switch to taking it as cash. For the dividend stocks I hold, see Top 10 Dividends That Pay Me $1,000 a Month.

Diversify across sectors, not just tickers. Ten tech stocks isn't diversification, it's concentration with extra steps.

This matters more now than it used to. In October 2026, the 10 largest companies made up 41% of the S&P 500. In 2015, it was 18%. If you're in the C Fund, you already own a lot of those same names, so buying a few more big tech stocks on the side doubles down on what you already have. The TSP gives you two easy ways to spread out. The S Fund holds U.S. companies that aren't in the S&P 500, about 12% of the U.S. market. The I Fund holds companies in developed and emerging markets outside the U.S. (minus China and Hong Kong). If everything you own moves together, you aren't diversified.

Think in years, not weeks. The shorter your timeline, the more daily swings matter. The longer it is, the less they do.

Here's what that looks like in real numbers. From 1950 through 2025, a single year in the S&P 500 ranged from up 52% to down 37%. But across every 20-year stretch in that time, the worst result was still a gain of about 6% a year. In a typical year, the market drops about 14% at some point, and it still finished positive in 35 of the last 46 years. A drop is normal. Selling during one is the expensive part.

Set specific goals before you invest. Retirement, a house, and your kid's education each call for a different timeline and a different level of risk.

A simple way to sort it: money you'll need within about five years, like a down payment or a car, doesn't belong in stocks. Keep it in a high-yield savings account or something just as safe. Money for 10 or more years out, like retirement, can ride the market's ups and downs. If you're getting out in the next year, your transition is a short-term goal too: the money that covers the gap between your last military paycheck and your first civilian one belongs in savings, not the market. Give each goal its own account or at least its own line in a spreadsheet, so you never sell retirement money to cover a short-term need. Best Places to Grow Your Money as a Service Member sorts every kind of money by when you'll need it.

Rebalance once a year. Over time, whatever did best grows into a bigger share of what you own than you planned. Pick one day a year, like your birthday or the first week of January, and move things back to your target mix. In the TSP, you get two transfers a month that can go to any fund, and after that you can only move money into the G Fund, so plan your changes before you make them. If you'd rather not think about it at all, the L Funds rebalance themselves at the end of every trading day.

If you pick individual stocks, know how to judge one. Look at revenue over several years, not one good quarter. Check whether the company makes a profit or burns cash to grow. Ask what would have to be true about the world for the stock to keep climbing, and whether you believe that or just like the story. By the time a stock is being hyped everywhere, the easy gains are often gone.

You don't need a paid service for any of this. Every public company files an annual report, called a 10-K, and it's free on the SEC's EDGAR site (sec.gov/edgar). Read the business description and the risk factors first. They tell you how the company makes money and what the company itself thinks could go wrong.

Don't try to time your way in and out. Steady investing beats guessing short-term moves. The numbers are in Mistakes to Avoid When Investing in the Stock Market.

Know your limits for the year. For 2026, you can put up to $24,500 into the TSP and $7,500 into an IRA. You don't have to hit either one. But get to at least 5% in the TSP first if you're under the Blended Retirement System, because that's what unlocks the full match (Roth TSP vs. Traditional TSP explains which side to use).

Do these three this week

• Log into myPay and check your TSP percentage. If it's under 5% and you're under BRS, fix that first.
• Write down when your next raise or promotion hits, and decide now how much of it goes to the TSP.
• Look at what you own and ask whether it would all fall together in a bad tech year.

People skip these because they're boring. That's exactly why they work for the people who don't.

Sources: J.P. Morgan Guide to the Markets, 4Q 2026; TSP Fund Information (May 2026); TSP, How to change your TSP investments; IRS, 2026 contribution limits; IRS Publication 550; Congressional Research Service, Defense Primer: Military Pay Raise; checked October 2026.

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Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. The information provided here is for educational purposes only and should be verified independently. See the full Disclaimer.