The best time to start investing is right now.
(Yes, really.)
Do you keep telling yourself you’ll invest when you make more money, or that you’ll get around to it “someday”? Here’s the thing: putting off investing could actually cost you more than you realize. Experts estimate that 40% of people have experienced a financial loss due to procrastination. By waiting to invest, you could be missing out on some potentially sweet financial gains. In fact, when you start investing could make a bigger difference on the amount you end up with than how much money you actually invest over time. So the sooner you put your dollars to work, the more you’re likely to benefit in the long term.
Time Is (Still) on Your Side
Ideally, we’d all start investing at birth. But let’s face it, many of us don’t think about it until we’re well into our 20s or 30s, even though we may have opportunities to invest before that. Don’t fret—you can become an investor at any age, but every second you wait, you’re giving up your greatest asset: time. Bonus: by investing when you’re younger rather than trying to reserve larger sums of money later in life, you give your money a chance to work “smarter” instead of harder. How? Keep reading.
Two Words: Compound Interest
Not only is time your best friend when you’re investing, but you’ll also reap the benefits of something called compound interest, a phenomenon genius Albert Einstein coined “the eighth wonder of the world.”
That’s the beauty of compound interest. Even if you never invested another penny, by starting earlier you’d still come out ahead of someone who chose to begin investing later in life. In other words, it pays to invest early and often. The longer your money can benefit from the power of compound interest, the bigger your gains will be as time goes on.
It Gives You an Opportunity to Take Control of Your Future
There’s something empowering about telling your money where to go. Rather than spending it, or worse, not knowing where your money is going, by investing, you’re giving your dollars a “job” to do, which makes you wealthier over time.
That being said, investing isn’t about getting rich. It’s about building a financial safety net for yourself. At some point in your life, you’re going to have to stop working. When that day comes, wouldn’t it be nice to know you’ve created a way to support yourself without a steady paycheck from your job? Or, better yet, what if you could choose to stop working when you wanted to, not when you needed to? Investing can help you create that financial freedom, and there’s no better time to start than right now.
You’ll Regret It If You Don’t
When asked the question, what is the one piece of investing advice they’d give to their younger selves, most expert investors will answer: “start earlier.” Yes, a chief regret of successful investors is that they didn’t make investing a habit sooner. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who famously said, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”—and who bought his first stock at age 11—wishes he’d started at a younger age!
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