How advisors can reach Gen Z and get them saving for retirement

• Key insight: Although Generation Z members tend to have less money to invest, advisors can still win their business by making financial planning affordable and showing the tangible benefits of early retirement saving.
• Expert quote: "Instead of having this kind of fluid and ethereal concept of, 'If I save now, it's good for me,' they can look at an actual number and see, 'If I commit to this habit long-term, here's what I'll have in the future.'" — Alexander Newby of the Legacy Wealth Group at Thrivent
• Forward look: Gen Z prospects might be found by speaking with clients' children, and clients could potentially pay for their children's first financial plan as a gift.

Generation Z clients may be early in their careers and have less wealth to invest than older generations, but advisors can build relationships by making planning more accessible and showing the value of saving for retirement.

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Children of existing clients can be a source of next-generation prospects, as can college athletes earning name, image or likeness (NIL) income. Advisors who charge planning feesrather than basing their fees on assets under management might also have an advantage with younger clients. 

"We certainly don't work with a ton of Gen Z clients, but the ones that we do, they definitely come to the conversation assuming that it's something that's wildly outside of their price range," said Alexander Newby, a Las Vegas, Nevada-based financial advisor in Thrivent's Legacy Wealth Group practice.

Yet younger clients might be able to afford fee-based planning, particularly if they don't need to update the plan annually, he said. Parents may also pay for a financial plan as a gift to help their children get off to a good start.

Newby said younger clients can struggle to see the benefits of saving for retirement decades in advance, especially when they feel "doom and gloom or hopelessness" about the future. The power of compounding can seem abstract, he said.

So, when first meeting with younger clients, he uses a future-value calculator to show them how monthly contributions can grow over time. For clients, that exercise can be motivating.

"Instead of having this kind of fluid and ethereal concept of, 'If I save now, it's good for me,' they can look at an actual number and see, 'If I commit to this habit long-term, here's what I'll have in the future,'" Newby said.

He also models how saving, say, $100 less per month or waiting five or 10 years to start saving can affect future balances, demonstrating how difficult it can be to make up for lost time.

Gen Z clients often delay saving for retirement because they aim to first create an emergency fund and pay down debt, Newby said. He encourages them to allocate funds toward all three savings goals at once to begin saving for retirement and benefiting from compounding.

Demonstrating value to Gen Z investors

A 2026 study by Northwestern Mutual that surveyed 4,375 U.S. adults found that Gen Z respondents began working with financial advisors at an average age of 22, compared with 30 for millennials, 40 for Generation X and 47 for baby boomers and older adults. Additionally, about one-quarter of both Gen Z and millennial respondents said they sought the help of a financial advisor for the first time during the past year.

In Newby's experience, Gen Z clients tend to be "incredibly frugal," in contrast with millennials, who he said popularized "little treat" culture and vacationing.

Gen Z also places more emphasis on work-life balance, said Thomas Pontius, director of financial planning at Los Angeles-based registered investment advisor Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management, characterizing that as a "paradigm change" for both millennials and Gen Z clients. 

"They don't necessarily want to work till they're 70 years old, and I think them trying to 'pre-game' this by getting started early is fantastic," he said.

With living costs high and rising, many younger clients tend to be budget-conscious and focused on preparing for future goals, he added. They also tend to educate themselves independently.

"They'll hear from us what we have to say, and they'll go do some research on it on their own, which is fantastic — it's what we want to see," Pontius said.

Canon Price, a senior financial advisor at Century City, California-based Signature Estate & Investment Advisors, also works with clients' children to keep family members on the same page and retain the account.

In her experience, many individuals aged 18 to 30 save and invest on their own and don't necessarily look for advisors unless their parents have made a referral.

"They kind of like their control," Price added.

That independence — and access to online information, AI chatbots and Reddit communities — means advisors need to clearly demonstrate what they offer beyond investment management, Pontius said.

That value proposition will vary by firm, he said, but the important thing is "to really drive home that the reason that you pay us a fee is that we can get ahead of these problems before they become problems."