Paul Viren, owner of the financial investing firm Viren & Associates Inc., in downtown Spokane, says two-thirds of his nearly 600 clients are Baby Boomers.

The average age among all his firm’s clients is 56.

Sarah Carlson, a certified financial planner who owns and operates the Fulcrum Financial Group LLC, on the South Hill, says $4 out of every $10 under investment by her firm belongs to those clients in the 56 to 65 age range.

Denise Downey, owner and founder of Financial Trex LLC, in Spokane, says the average age of her investors is 52.

And Christopher Malde, who owns and operates Malde Capital Management LLC, in Spokane, says the average age of his investors is 47. Slightly more than half (52%) are between the ages of 40 and 65.

Viren, Carlson, Downey, and Malde are 64, 56, 41, and 38 years old, respectively.

Regardless of the age of these investors, what is clear among their client bases is that saving and investing money is an effort that could be argued is taken more seriously by those in their advanced years.

“When I look at the age demographics, I’m not surprised at all,” says Viren, who’s now been operating his business for approaching three decades.

Viren says just over 30% of his clients are between 66 and 76, and an equal number are between 56 and 65. A small portion, .05%, are over 85.

But the numbers fall dramatically from there, he says, with only 9.4% of his clients between 46 and 55 and 4.6% between 36 and 45. Investors under the age of 35 are 10% of his clients, he says.

“Overall, Americans aren’t very good as savers. Consumer debt is now approaching, maybe even exceeding, what we saw before 2007, 2006,” Viren says. “But among younger generations, they’re saving even less.”

Viren’s office is located at 111 S. Post in downtown Spokane. He’s been a financial adviser for 26 years. One of the concerns he’s hearing emerge more from his older clients is that they worry about leaving money to their children and grandchildren after they die.

“They see the Generation Xers and millennials among them who spend too much and don’t save enough,” Viren says. “They say it’s as much a debt problem as it is a savings problem for them.”

Carlson established Fulcrum in 1997 and recently moved into new construction at 1216 S. Grand Blvd.

Among her clients, 41.5% between ages 56 and 65 have the largest concentration of wealth that Fulcrum oversees. They’re followed by those clients between 66 to 75 possessing 12.1% of Fulcrum’s assets under management.

Those 75 and over have 9.4% of Fulcrum’s assets under management. The age groups under 45, however, hold just 5.4% of the assets managed by Fulcrum, she says.

She says the percentages are a function of older clients having amassed more money as they’ve advanced, or are in the midst of, their prime income generating years.

However, she says she was “surprised” to see that the age group between 46 and 55 didn’t have a greater percentage of the assets Fulcrum manages.

Fulcrum is affiliated with Boston-based LPL Financial Holdings, one of the largest independent broker-dealers in the U.S. LPL has more than 14,000 financial advisers and more than $500 billion in advisory brokerage assets.

Carlson declines to disclose the total dollar value of the assets under her management but says the firm currently has more than 300 clients, many of whom are Spokane-area small business owners.

Carlson writes a blog for her firm’s website. It is there where she challenges the savings and spending habits of Americans today, acting as not only a financial adviser but also as a counselor of sorts.

“These are some really interesting times we live in,” says Carlson.

Daily, she sees a consumer society driven to short-term “validation” through acquisitions of often unnecessary material goods.

“It’s sexier having $70,000 in savings than a $70,000 car,” she asserts.

She’s become concerned with an emerging trend among investors known as FIRE – financially independent, retire early. Proponents of FIRE tend to eschew home ownership and travel heavily.

“In large tech metros like Seattle, maybe by 35, 40, they’ve saved $300,000 to $400,00 and think they’re set for life,” Carlson says.

Carlson says they’re not thinking about the long-term effects of those decisions, specifically a change in health.

“If you have to go back to work in two, three, five years and you left in the IT field, you’re probably not going to get back where you were because your field changed moments after you left,” Carlson says.

Malde established his firm in Spokane in early 2018 with a specific goal of targeting clients between 35 and 45.

Among his close to 40 clients, 37% range in age from 18 to 40 with the rest being 40 and over.

“Anecdotally, what I see among a lot of people my age is that they’re in the thick of raising young children,” he says. “By the early to mid-40s, and they’re out of the fog of raising young children, then their attention begins to shift more toward investing and saving.”

Downey says she desired to create an investment firm that specifically targeted young investors. She previously spent more than a decade working with large, commission-based financial firms in Chicago.

“Younger investors are typically ignored by financial planners because they don’t have as much money,” Downey says.

However, she did echo a sentiment similar to Malde’s.

“I find that for younger investors, it’s harder for them to prioritize,” she says. “So that’s when I can sit down with them, help them establish a priority list and move forward.”