Women who invest began at an average age of 31, but most wish they had started putting money in the market earlier, a recent survey said.

Nearly all — 90% — of the women investors surveyed said they’re “on the right track” to achieve their financial goals, according to the survey, by Charles Schwab, an investment and financial services firm.

However, 85% share a common regret — they said they wish they had started investing at an earlier age, the survey said.

When the age is broken down by generation, Schwab found that millennials began investing at age 27, on average, Gen Xers’ average starting age was 31, and baby boomers started at an average age of 36.

Schwab polled 1,200 women in the U.S. ages 21 to 75 in January. The report said they each had at least $5,000 in investable assets, not including retirement accounts or real estate, and were all primary or joint household financial decision-makers.

Some of the top reasons respondents said they began investing later in life than they would have liked were a lack of financial knowledge, 54%, and limited funds to invest, 53%, according to Schwab’s report.

There’s an advantage in getting started with investing as soon as you can, even if you don’t have much to contribute at first: You’ll benefit from time in the market, according to Carolyn McClanahan, a certified financial planner and founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida.

“Start saving while you’re young because you have lots of years for your money to grow,” said McClanahan, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council. 

An early start to investing harnesses the power of compounding.

Compound interest means your money earns interest on both the original amount you invest and on the interest you’ve already earned, said Jeannie Bidner, a managing director and head of the branch network at Charles Schwab. Compound returns are broader, and typically include other types of investment gains, such as dividends and capital gains. 

Compounding creates a “snowball effect” for your cash, she said. “The sooner you get started, the better.”

Let’s say a person begins at age 25 investing $6,000 per year, with an average 7% annual return. By the time they’re 67 years old, the account balance would be almost $1.5 million, according to Fidelity Investments. If that individual delays starting to invest until age 30, they would end up with just over $1 million by retirement.

In other words, that five-year head start offers a bonus of nearly half a million dollars.

It’s not just about getting a head start. Staying invested through major market swings and sticking to your plan are essential to meeting your financial goals.

More than half, or 58%, of the women in the survey said they learned to stay invested despite the ups and downs of the market, Schwab found, and 42% said they learned to create a plan and stick to it.

While market volatility can “feel like you’re at a casino,” it’s important to disregard the major swings and focus on your long-term outlook, Katie Gatti Tassin, author of “Rich Girl Nation: Taking Charge of Our Financial Futures,” said at an event Wednesday at 92NY, a cultural and community center in New York.

“It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, it’s a get-rich-slowly scheme,” Gatti Tassin said.

As Senate Republicans release key details of President Donald Trump‘s spending package, some provisions, including the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, remain in limbo.

Enacted via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there’s currently a $10,000 limit on the SALT deduction through 2025. Before 2018, the tax break — including state and local income and property taxes — was unlimited for filers who itemized deductions. But the so-called alternative minimum tax reduced the benefit for some higher earners.

The Senate Finance Committee’s proposed text released on Monday includes a $10,000 SALT deduction cap, which is expected to change during Senate-House negotiations on the spending package. That limit is down from the $40,000 cap approved by House Republicans in May.

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Under current law, filers who itemize tax breaks can’t claim more than $10,000 for the SALT deduction, including married couples filing jointly, which is considered a “marriage penalty.”

However, raising the SALT deduction cap has been controversial. If enacted, benefits would primarily flow to higher-income households, according to a May analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Currently, the vast majority of filers — roughly 90%, according to the latest IRS data — use the standard deduction and don’t benefit from itemized tax breaks.

Plus, the 2017 SALT cap was enacted to help pay for other TCJA tax breaks, and some lawmakers support the lower limit for funding purposes.

In the Senate, “there isn’t a high level of interest in doing anything on SALT,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said June 15 on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I think at the end of the day, we’ll find a landing spot, hopefully that will get the votes that we need in the House, a compromise position on the SALT issue,” he said. 

But some House Republicans have already pushed back on the proposed $10,000 SALT deduction cap included in the Senate draft. 

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., on Monday described the Senate proposed $10,000 SALT deduction limit as “DEAD ON ARRIVAL” in an X post.

Meanwhile, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., on Monday also posted about the $10,000 cap on X. She said the lower limit was “not only insulting but a slap in the face to the Republican districts that delivered our majority and trifecta.”

How much will it cost to visit a museum, zoo or aquarium this summer? The answer, increasingly, is: It depends.

John Linehan can rattle off almost two dozen factors that Zoo New England’s dynamic pricing contractor, Digonex, uses to recommend what to charge guests.

“It’s complicated,” said Linehan, president and CEO of the operator of the two zoos in eastern Massachusetts.

Before adopting dynamic pricing, the organization was changing prices seasonally and increasing entry rates little by little. “As we watched that pattern, we were afraid some families were going to get priced out,” he said of the earlier approach. “I’m a father of four and I know what it is like.”

Now, Zoo New England’s system provides cheaper rates for tickets purchased far in advance. That, coupled with the zoo’s participation in the Mass Cultural Council’s discounted admissions program for low-income and working families, “puts some control back in the consumer’s hands,” Linehan said.

The zoo is one of many attractions embracing pricing systems that were earlier pioneered by airlines, ride-hailing apps and theme parks. While these practices allow operators to lower prices when demand is soft, they also enable the reverse, threatening to squeeze consumers who are increasingly trimming their summer travel budgets.

Before the pandemic, less than 1% of attractions surveyed by Arival, a tourism market research and events firm, used variable or dynamic pricing. Today, 17% use variable pricing, in which entry fees are adjusted based on predictable factors such as the day of the week or the season, Arival said. And 6% use dynamic pricing, in which historical and real-time data on weather, staffing, demand patterns and more influence rates.

The changes come as barely half of U.S. museums, zoos, science centers and similar institutions have fully recovered to their pre-Covid attendance levels, according to the American Alliance of Museums. That has led many to pursue novel ways of filling budget gaps and offsetting cost increases.

“There’s a saying: ‘No margin, no mission,'” Linehan said, “and we charge what we need to make ends meet while delivering on our mission.”

Entry costs are climbing even at attractions that aren’t using price-setting technology. The broad “admissions” category in the federal government’s Consumer Price Index, which includes museum fees alongside sports and concert tickets, climbed 3.9% in May from the year before, well above the annual 2.4% inflation rate.

In 2024, the nonprofit Monterey Bay Aquarium raised adult ticket prices from $59.95 to $65 and recently upped its individual membership rate, which includes year-round admission, from $95 to $125. “Gate admission from ticket sales funds the core operation of the aquarium,” a spokesperson said.

While the Denver Art Museum has no plans to test dynamic pricing, it raised admissions fees last fall, three years after a $175 million renovation and a survey of ticket prices elsewhere, a spokesperson said. Entry costs went from $18 to $22 for Colorado residents and from $22 to $27 for out-of-state visitors. Prices rise on weekends and during busy times, to $25 and $30 for in- and out-of-state visitors, respectively. Guests under age 19 always get in free thanks to a sponsored program.

Like many attractions, the art museum posts these prices on its website. But many attractions’ publicly listed ticket prices are liable to fluctuate. The Seattle Aquarium — which raised its price ranges last summer by about $10 ahead of the opening of a new ocean pavilion — also uses Digonex’s algorithmic recommendations.

During the week of June 8, for example, the aquarium’s online visit planner, which displays the relative ticket availability for each day, offered out-of-state adult admissions as low as $37.95 for dates later in the month and as much as $46.95 for walk-in tickets that week. In addition to booking in advance, there are more than half a dozen other discounts available to certain guests, including seniors and tribal and military members, a spokesperson noted.

At many attractions, however, admission fees aren’t even provided until a guest enters the specific day and time they want to visit — making it difficult to know that lower prices may be available at another time.

“Some attractions are doing a daily analysis of their bookings over the next several days or weeks and making adjustments” to prices continuously, said Arival CEO Douglas Quinby. Prices might rise quietly on a day when slots are filling up and dip when tickets don’t seem to be moving, he said.

Digonex, which says it provides automated dynamic pricing services to more than 70 attractions worldwide, offers recommendations as frequently as daily. It’s up to clients to decide how and whether to implement them, a spokesperson said. Each algorithm is tailored to organizations’ goals and can account for everything from weather to capacity constraints and even Google Analytics search patterns.

Data-driven pricing can be “a financial win for both the public and the museum,” said Elizabeth Merritt, vice president of strategic foresight at the American Alliance of Museums. It can reduce overcrowding, she said, while steering budget-minded guests toward dates that are both cheaper and less busy.

But steeper prices during peak periods and for short-notice visits could rankle guests — who may see anything less than a top-notch experience as a rip-off, said Stephen Pratt, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management who studies tourism.

“Because of the higher prices, you want an experience that’s really great,” he said, transforming a low-key day at the zoo into a big-ticket, high-stakes outing. “You’ve invested this money into family time, into creating memories, and you don’t want any service mishaps.”

That could raise the risk of blowback at many attractions, especially those grappling with Trump administration cuts this summer. Some historic sites and national parks have already warned that their operations are under pressure.

Consumers should expect more price complexity to come. Arival said 16% of attractions ranked implementing dynamic pricing as a top priority for 2025-26. Among large attractions serving at least half a million guests annually, 37% are prioritizing dynamic pricing, up from the 12% that use it currently.

For visitors, that could mean hunting harder for cheaper tickets. While many museums are free year-round, others provide lower rates for off-season visits and those booked in advance. It’s also common to reduce or waive fees on certain days or hours, and many kids and seniors can often get discounted entry.

Here are a few other ways to keep admissions costs low:

• Ask your local library. Many have museum passes that cardholders can check out.
• Bundling programs such as CityPass, GetOutPass, Go City and others allow visitors to save money on admissions to a range of attractions.
• Bank of America’s Museums on Us program offers cardholders free entry to many institutions during the first full weekend of each month.
• For the past decade, Museums for All has been providing free or reduced entry at more 1,400 U.S. museums and attractions to anyone receiving SNAP food assistance benefits.
• And each summer, the Blue Star Museums program offers museum discounts to actively serving military personnel and their families.

“It may take a bit of research,” said Quinby, “but it’s still possible to find a good deal.”