by Samantha Asher

The difference between investing today and investing tomorrow can be a lot of money. Even if you just invest $1,000 now and waited 20 years or invested $1,000 in 10 years and waited another 10, there would be quite a bit of difference.

The longer the wait, the less money you have. Time is money and if you waste it, it’s like you’re wasting money. Just as you get paid for your time and efforts at work, with investing, you’ll get paid a lot more with more time. The sooner you start, the more you’ll make.

When it comes to investing, the sooner you start, the more money you’ll have. If you had $10,000 to invest over a period of 10 years, if you could, you should invest it all in the first year. You would have to most money after 10 years than if you spread it out. It’s just simple rules of compounding.

If you start investing when you are young, like in your 20s, you will have the biggest advantage. You’ll have more money for retirement if you invest, and you’ll have even more if you invest it early.

Let’s say you’re 23 years old and just started a good job. You want to retire at age 65 which is in 42 years/ If you invest $500 every year for 42 years with an average return of 9%, you’ll have invested about $26,000. Guess how much this $26,000 will be worth? You’ll have about $218,000.

If you started investing later in life, you would have quite a bit less, even if you invested more. Let’s say you invested $2,000 a year from 45 to 65, for a total of 20 years. You would have invested a total of $40,000. You would have about $110,000. That is much less. Would you rather retire comfortably or rush through your last working years trying to save enough?

Take these scenarios you’ve read and use them to help you decide when you should start investing. Hopefully you’ve realized there is no better time than the present. When you put together time and compounding, you can earn a lot of dough. Compounding is basically exponential growth with your money. The money you earned last year will continue to earn money this year and so on and so forth.

There is no set amount of money that you must start investing now. You could start out very small and then as you begin to earn more, start contributing more. Start by taking 2% of your income and investing it for retirement, then add a percentage point more each year to your contribution. When you hit 20%, you might find you are in a good place to retire early.

About the Author:
You really shouldstart investing right away if you want to retire comfortably, early, or even at all. Put aside some time now to learn more about all Types of Investments and start investing now!