The price of starting late.
— there is no slider for time
Two investors, same goal
Imagine two people, both retiring at sixty-five, both putting the same amount aside every month. The only difference: one starts at twenty-five, the other waits a few years longer. Same job, same salary, same discipline. Just a few years of difference at the start.
See the price of those years
Drag the slider to set how many years the second person waits. The two lines below show both portfolios over time, ending at retirement. The shocking part is not that the late starter has less — it's how much less, for how little extra waiting.
What this is really saying
If you can only invest a small amount today, do it anyway. A modest contribution started now will probably beat a much larger one started later. Every year you wait is a year of you'll never get back — and it's the LAST years (when the balance is largest) that matter most.
The best time was twenty years ago.
Investing $200/month from age 25 to 65 ends with about $525,000. Wait until 35 and end with about $244,000 — less than half. Same monthly amount. Same forty years of working life. Just ten of those years spent waiting instead of .