While I was jogging just now, I realized that my stamina has increased slightly. I started jogging a few months ago and I am pleased with the progress I am making. I had procrastinated on exercising for many years. I have always come up with excuses such as “lack of time” or “I will start when I have more time after resign from my job and start working from home”.

A few months ago, my aunt was admitted to the hospital for high blood pressure. It was then I realized that I had to take my health seriously and start exercising.

The same experience could be applied to investing as well. People give many excuses for not investing their money. How many times have you heard “I don’t have excess money for investment” or “I am waiting for the right time to enter the stock market or buy my dream property”? The fact is people can start investing even with very little money, and if it is THAT easy to time the market then most people would have quit their jobs to go full time into buying and selling stocks.

The best time to invest is now when you are young. This is because younger people can take on more risks. If the investments loses value, they still have time on their side to ride out the setback and see their investment recover their value.

Why do we need to take risks? Because we need to manage our wealth so it does not get eroded by inflation. And when we retire at old age, we will have wealth that would support our retirement years.

If we do not invest at a younger age, then we will face higher risks during our retirement years because our wealth has been eroded by inflation. We might be forced to invest some of the wealth hoping to increase income to sustain the retirement years. But what happens if the market suddenly crashes and your investment loses value? You have no employment income to fall back on and you may not have the luxury of time to ride out this setback. Hence, it is better to take risks at a younger age and so the best time to start investing is now when you are young.