Your 20s are an amazing time to set yourself up financially because of a beautiful thing called compounding.
Compounding is when an investment continually grows by a certain percent, and the more time that passess the greater the absolute returns will be.
So to maximise returns through compounding, you should start investing as early as you can.
To illustrate, let’s say you are 20 years old and have $10,000 in your bank account. You can choose to leave it in the account where it doesn’t earn any interest. Or you can invest it at an annual rate of 5%.
If you invest the full amount at 20, then when you’re 50 this will have grown to $43,219.
If you wait until you’re 25 to invest, then by 50 the investment is only $33,864.
And if you wait until you’re 30 to invest, then by 50 the investment is only $26,533.
I appreciate that having savings in your 20s is challenging, but it’s great to have a mindset to invest as early as you can – your future self will thank you.
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