How to Automate Your Investments (So You Can Grow Wealth Without Thinking About It)

Want to build wealth without stressing over the stock market or remembering to move money around every month? Automation is your new best friend.

Automating your investments means putting your money to work without needing to make decisions every time you get paid. It’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to stay consistent, build wealth over time, and remove emotion from the equation.

In this guide, you’ll learn exactly how to automate your investments, step by step—even if you’re brand new to investing.

Why Automate Your Investments?

Most people don’t struggle with knowing what to do—they struggle with actually doing it consistently.

Automating your investments helps you:

Stay consistent, even when life gets busy
Avoid emotional decisions like panic selling or skipping a month
Take advantage of dollar-cost averaging without thinking about it
Build real wealth over time, even if you’re starting small

When you set it and forget it, you take the pressure off and let your money grow quietly in the background.

Step-by-Step: How to Automate Your Investments

1. Pick a Platform That Supports Automation

To get started, you’ll need a brokerage account or Roth IRA with a platform that offers recurring investment options. Good beginner-friendly platforms include:

Fidelity
Charles Schwab
Vanguard
M1 Finance
Betterment or Wealthfront (robo-advisors)

Make sure the platform allows you to schedule automatic transfers and investments into your chosen fund or ETF.

2. Choose How Much to Invest

This can be as little as $25 a week or $100 per month—whatever fits your budget.
Start small and build up as you go. The key is to stay consistent.

💡 Pro tip: Align your investment schedule with your paydays so it feels seamless.

3. Pick Your Investment(s)

Start with something simple and diversified, like:

An S&P 500 ETF
A Total Stock Market Index Fund
A Target Date Fund (especially in a 401(k) or Roth IRA)
A 3-fund portfolio if you want to get a little more advanced later

These types of investments give you broad market exposure with low fees and long-term growth potential.

4. Set Up Automatic Transfers

Log into your investment platform and schedule automatic transfers from your bank account to your brokerage or retirement account. This ensures the money is ready to be invested.

Most platforms allow you to choose:

Frequency (weekly, biweekly, monthly)
Transfer amount
Start date

5. Schedule Automatic Investments

Once your money is transferred, schedule recurring investments into your chosen fund. This step is what turns your platform into a “wealth-building machine.”

On most platforms, this is called:

Recurring buy (Fidelity, Schwab)
Auto-invest (M1 Finance)
Automatic portfolio management (robo-advisors)

Make sure the amount matches what you’re transferring in.

6. Track It (But Don’t Obsess Over It)

Once everything is set up, you don’t need to monitor your account daily. Check in once a month or once a quarter just to see how things are going—and to celebrate your consistency!

Real-Life Example

Let’s say you want to invest $200 a month into an S&P 500 ETF through Fidelity:

You set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your Fidelity Roth IRA on the 1st of each month.
On the 2nd of each month, you schedule an automatic investment into FXAIX (Fidelity’s S&P 500 Index Fund).
Done! Every month, your money is moved and invested—without you lifting a finger.

Automating your investments is one of the most powerful habits you can create. It keeps your strategy simple, your emotions out of the way, and your money growing in the background.

Whether you’re investing $25 or $2,500 a month, the magic is in doing it regularly without thinking about it. Set it up once, stay the course—and let time and compound interest do their thing.