Summary of this article
A 10-year delay can cost ₹3.8 crore in returns.
Time boosts compounding, not timing the market.
Start SIPs early—waiting is the real loss.
Most people sitting on the fence, waiting for the right time or the right market levels to invest in mutual funds, often ignore the real cost of delay. Would you believe that a 10-year delay in investing can lower your final corpus by Rs 3.8 crore?
Let’s begin with something straightforward and easy to understand. Think of investing like planting a mango tree. The earlier you plant it, the sooner it will start to bear fruit. If you delay, you may never enjoy the shade or the mangoes. Do you agree?
Now, let's apply this logic to investments and perform some calculations. Imagine you invest Rs 10,000 at a 12% annual return. Year one – you earn Rs 1,200 in return, so your total grows to Rs 11,200. Now here's where the real magic happens. In Year 2, you don't just earn returns on your original investment of Rs 10,000, but now you also earn returns on Rs 1,200 profit from the first year.
So, in Year 2, instead of earning just Rs 1,200, you now earn Rs 1,344. That extra Rs 144 is what compounding at work is. Where, every year, your profits start earning their own profits, and over time, this snowballs into something massive.
Now imagine this happening not just for two years but for decades. Your money is literally working for you even while you sleep. This is why investing is not just about how much you invest but also how long you stay invested. The more time you give, the more powerful OR big your final corpus can become. Thanks to the magic of compounding!
How much is the Cost of Delay?
Let's take two colleagues. Rhea and Aman, two professionals with the same salary, decided to start investing in mutual funds through a systematic investment plan (SIP).
Now, Rhea, who was 25 years old, started investing right then. She began investing Rs 10,000 per month via SIP in an equity mutual fund that had a long-term average history of around 12 per cent returns.
Whereas Aman got caught up in other usual things in life and placed investing on the back burner. He kept postponing due to his laziness. Fast forward 10 years…
Aman and Rhea are both 35 years old now. Aman, who kept on pushing his plan of investing away, finally started to invest.
Aman started investing Rs 10,000 via SIP in mutual funds, exactly like Rhea did. But a delay of 10 years had already done the damage.
After 10 years, while Aman decided to begin now, Rhea, through her disciplined investing, had already built a corpus of Rs 22.40 lakh.
If this does not excite you, then look at these numbers. By the time they turned 60, their corpus looked shockingly different.
Aman, who started at age 35 till 60, made a total corpus of Rs 1.70 crore. Whereas Rhea, the smarter one, accumulated Rs 5.51 crore. How? By starting 10 years early… exactly the same amount, same returns, but simply by not delaying.
So, if you have reasons like my salary is too small right now, well, even Rs 500 a month is a start. For most of us, that’s just one less Swiggy order a month.
Don’t keep on waiting for the right time for a better job or any xyz reason; you will keep waiting forever. Aman's biggest mistake was that he thought he had time, but time in investing is your biggest ally or your worst enemy if you waste it.
