Most people delay investing for a reason that sounds responsible. They want to wait until they have enough money to make it count. The math punishes that instinct.
At a 7% average annual return, invested money doubles roughly every decade. That’s the Rule of 72. Divide 72 by your annual return to estimate how many years a sum needs to double. Start at 25 and your first dollars get four doublings by 65. Start at 35 and they get three.
The missing decade doesn’t shave a little off the end result. It removes the final doubling, the one where the dollar gains are largest. Compounding is back-loaded. The early years look slow, and the last decade does the heavy lifting. Put differently, a 35-year-old has to invest more than twice as much every month to land where a 25-year-old’s smaller contributions would have gone.
Start with whatever your budget clears today. If your employer offers a 401(k) match, contribute enough to capture all of it. The match is an immediate return no market can beat. Without a match, open an IRA or a regular brokerage account and set up an automatic monthly transfer, even $50. Put the money in a broad index fund, one that owns the whole market, and leave it alone.
Raise the contribution every time your income rises. Don’t wait for a dip either. At a forty-year horizon, the difference between a good entry price and a bad one is noise. The difference between starting now and starting later is the whole gap.
And if 25 is already behind you, the same math argues for starting today. Investing at 35 instead of 45 protects a doubling too.
You can always add more money later. You can’t buy back a doubling cycle.
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