The money that you save in your 529 california plan is further invested to let it grow more. The investment amount is allotted according to various strategies, and an age based investment is one of them. The age to be counted here is that of the beneficiary of that account. If the beneficiary is young and there is a lot of time before he or she would join the college, the age based strategy allows equity based investments which have high risk, high benefit options. With the passage of time, the investments of a 529 California savings are gradually moved to more conservative investment options.