When you start investing there are many factors to consider. What should you buy? How much should you save? What type of account? There are many other details!

What’s the most important focus to help you achieve your goal? Assuming you first set a clear goal with a clear deadline, the most important step is saving enough. Let’s look at some quick examples:

Saving $1,000/month at 1% puts you around $420,000 after 30 years while saving $100/month at 10% gets you to $226,000.

The difference is extreme in the beginning as $1,000/month at 1% puts you around $61,500 after 5 years while saving $100/month at 10% gets you to $7,750.

When you’re starting out by saving something and make 0%, you’ll always have more than saving nothing in a perfect investment. (Hint: you don’t actually get that high return because you have nothing to invest!) You don’t have to have $1000/month as the examples above, but making sure you save enough for your personal goal is critical.

Ideally, you try to optimize everything with your investments, but starting to save and having money to invest is the most important part.

We’d love to help you achieve those goals that are important to you!