Answer:
If you want to make things easy on yourself you want to start investing as soon as possible. The sooner you start investing the lower your initial and subsequent investment contribution amounts will need to be. For example, let's say that you want to have at least $500,000 in your retirement account by the time that you turn 65. If you start in your 20's you will have to contribute much less a month than you would have to contribute a month if you put off investing until you were in your 40's. In fact, if you start investing early, your interest can start making money for you faster because of the principle of compound interest.

It is never too late to invest, but the longer that you put off investing for the future, the more money you will have to spend to get to your target investment amount. Naturally, having to spend more money means being faced with more of a financial burden. This is why investment experts suggest investing early to avoid too much of a financial inconvenience. When you invest early in life even the most modest of investments can work to your advantage over time.

Investing early in life also allows for you to have a longer time to learn more about what types of investments are most lucrative (considering the risk you are willing to take on). Investing takes a lot of research. You need to be sure that the company stock that you buy with your money is going to be stock that increases in value. This means researching the companies that you invest with and making educated decisions about the potential for progress and business growth. By investing early, you have the opportunity to compare long term trends and make more educated decisions when it comes to subsequent investments. In other words, by starting early, you can become a better investor in a shorter amount of time. Of course it is possible to educate yourself regarding market trends without having money actually working for you in the stock market, but this will require more effort and real-world knowledge of specific stock trends tends to be more beneficial than a theoretical knowledge.

Some of the most basic trends in the stock market are directly correlated with the amount of risk associated with a given investment. Low risk investments are investments that are almost guaranteed to pay out. Low risk investments include things like certificates of deposit and mutual funds. These investments are guaranteed to pay a specific amount at a regular interval; however, these amounts are relatively small. You are not going to get rich quick off of a low risk investment. High risk investments are the types of investments that could potentially make you a millionaire overnight. High risk investments are long-shots. High risk investments may never yield any kind of return; in fact, they could decrease in value leaving you with even less than what you initially invested. But the potential for increasing your initial investment a hundred or over thousand times over makes these high risk investments very appealing for investors. Market trends show that those who have at least a portion of high risk stocks in their portfolios will see an increase in these investments after 20 years. Any time after that is just a bonus, you will simply continue watching you money grow. By making smart investment decisions now, you can reap the benefits a lot earlier in life.