How to Invest When You Only Have a Few Minutes a Week

You don’t need a finance degree or daily market updates to grow your money. You’re actually probably better off if you don’t check the markets every day. Not just to avoid over-trading and impulsive decisions, but to keep you sane. Market fluctuations can be stressful!

In fact, some of the most reliable investing strategies work best when left alone. Take it from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who recommends most people simply stick to index funds.

Expert insight

"Both large and small investors should stick with low-cost index funds … My regular recommendation has been a low-cost S&P 500 index fund."

Warren Buffett

American investor, entrepreneur and businessman

If your bandwidth is limited to a few minutes a week, you can still invest intelligently — as long as you commit to structure, automation and a disciplined approach.

With the right structure, investing can be low-maintenance, cost-efficient and surprisingly effective — even if you only have a few minutes a week.

The power of automation: Set it and forget it

When you automate your investing, you’re not avoiding discipline — you’re enforcing it. Automation removes decision fatigue and reduces the risk of reacting emotionally to market fluctuations.

Automate these elements:

• Transfers. Schedule recurring contributions from your bank account to your investment account. This removes the need for decision-making each week, enforces consistent investing habits and takes advantage of dollar-cost averaging. It also helps you build wealth passively, without monitoring the market or remembering to invest.
• Allocation. Use a platform that automatically divides your money across your chosen investments. This ensures your contributions are immediately and proportionally allocated — whether to index funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or a diversified portfolio — without manual trades. It saves time, reduces the risk of emotional decision-making and keeps your portfolio aligned with your strategy as new money comes in.
• Rebalancing. As markets move, some assets in your portfolio will grow faster than others, throwing off your intended allocation. For example, too much in tech, not enough in bonds. Automated rebalancing restores your target mix by selling overweight assets and buying underweight ones — keeping your risk level consistent without requiring your time or attention. Robo-advisors and some brokerages can correct that without manual trades.

Once you’ve set these up, your weekly effort drops to near zero — without sacrificing performance or control.

Best apps for lazy investors

These platforms are designed for people who want to invest efficiently, not obsessively. Each offers different strengths depending on your goals and risk tolerance:

Lazy strategies that still work: Index funds, robo-advisors and target-date funds

Effective doesn’t need to mean complicated. These long-term strategies perform well without demanding constant oversight:

• Total-market index funds. One purchase gives you exposure to thousands of stocks. Options include the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) or Fidelity ZERO Total Market Index (FZROX).
• S&P 500 index funds. One purchase exposes you to 500 of the largest US companies. Options include the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) and SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY).
• Robo-advisors. Let a digital platform handle allocation, risk adjustments and rebalancing for you. Most robo-advisors invest in low-cost ETFs, but some include individual stock exposure.
• Target-date funds. These funds, typically mutual funds, automatically adjust asset mix as you get closer to retirement. Choose a year, and the fund handles the rest.

Each of these options delivers broad diversification, low fees and long-term alignment without demanding your time or attention.

Mistakes to avoid when going hands-off

Even low-effort investing requires good judgment up front. Avoid these common pitfalls:

• Over-complicating your portfolio. Too many funds or overlapping ETFs don’t improve returns — they create confusion and tax inefficiency.
• Underestimating cash needs. Don’t lock away funds you’ll need in the next 12 months. Keep emergency cash separate from investments.
• Neglecting periodic review. Even automated strategies deserve a quarterly check-in. Look for drift, contributions that didn’t go through or new platform features worth enabling.

5-minute weekly investing checklist

If you want to stay informed without falling into the trap of micromanagement, block out five minutes each week for these quick checks:

Confirm that your scheduled transfer or contribution cleared.
Skim for any unusual alerts, failed transactions or account holds.
Look at your total balance — not to react, but to stay engaged.
Glance at your allocation. If something looks off, note it for your quarterly review.
Resist the urge to tweak. Trust the system unless something has truly changed.

This light-touch rhythm reinforces structure without dragging you into daily fluctuations.

Build wealth without burnout

Investing doesn’t need to become your second job. With the right tools and systems, you can grow long-term wealth in the background while focusing on everything else that matters more in the short term. Complexity doesn’t lead to better outcomes — consistency does. Put the plan in place, automate what you can and give your attention back to the parts of life that can’t be outsourced.

If you’re still deciding where to start, compare the best brokerage accounts for hands-off investing. Choose one that fits your time constraints and helps you stay invested without adding another task to your week.

To make sure you get accurate and helpful information, this guide has been edited by Holly Jennings as part of our fact-checking process.

Written by

Matt Miczulski

Investments editor and market analyst

Matt Miczulski is an investments editor and market analyst at Finder. With over 450 bylines, Matt dissects and reviews brokers and investing platforms to expose perks and pain points, explores investment products and concepts and covers market news, making investing more accessible and helping readers to make informed financial decisions. Before joining Finder in 2021, Matt covered everything from finance news and banking to debt and travel for FinanceBuzz. His expertise and analysis on investing and other financial topics has been featured on Yahoo Finance, CBS, MSN, Best Company and Consolidated Credit, among others. Matt holds a BA in history from William Paterson University. See full bio

Matt's expertise

Matt has written 199 Finder guides across topics including:

• Trading and investing
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