People often ask me what my biggest investing mistake was.
They expect a story about a stock that crashed, or a property deal that went sideways, or some dramatic financial cautionary tale.
I don’t have one of those.
My biggest mistake was much quieter, much more ordinary, and honestly, much more common than people realise.
I waited too long to start.
Why I waited
I started saving the moment I began working, at 22. That part I got right early — living below my means, building up cash, staying disciplined about not spending what I earned.
But saving and investing are not the same thing, and for years I treated them as though they were. In my 20s and early 30s, my focus was on building up cash and staying free of debt. That felt responsible. It felt like enough.
Nobody told me that “just saving” was costing me something invisible the entire time I waited to actually invest.
I wasn’t being reckless. I wasn’t ignoring my finances. I was doing what felt prudent — keeping a buffer, staying cautious, being careful.
But careful and optimal aren’t always the same thing.
The cost of “later”
Here’s what I didn’t fully understand back then: compounding doesn’t really care how responsible you’re being while you wait. It just needs time. And time is the one thing you can never buy back.
Every year I spent solely saving cash was a year my money wasn’t out there working for me — not growing through capital appreciation, not generating dividends that could be reinvested, not compounding quietly in the background while I went about my life.
It’s not that saving was wrong. It’s that I saw saving and investing as a strict sequence — build the cash buffer first, then think about the stock market — instead of asking whether I could have done both at once.
Looking back, I could have kept building my savings discipline while also starting to invest small amounts on the side. I didn’t need to wait until I felt fully “secure” before putting any money into the market at all.
What I’d tell my younger self
You don’t need a large sum to start. You don’t need to feel fully financially secure first. You don’t need to feel “ready” in some perfect, fully-prepared sense.
You just need to start small, and let time do what time does.
If I could go back, I wouldn’t tell myself to stop saving or abandon caution altogether. I’d tell myself this: you can build your savings and start investing at the same time — they’re not opposites.
Discipline isn’t about doing things in the “correct” order. It’s about not letting any one priority consume all your financial bandwidth indefinitely.
If you’re reading this and feeling behind
Maybe you’re in your 40s or 50s right now, and you’re doing the math in your head, wondering if it’s already too late for you the way I once wondered.
It isn’t.
The best time to start was years ago. The second best time is today. I know that’s a cliché, but clichés become clichés because they’re true often enough to matter.
What I want you to take from my mistake isn’t regret. It’s permission — permission to stop waiting for the “right” moment, the cleared debt, the bigger paycheck, the perfect plan.
Start with what you have. Start imperfectly. Just start.
Your turn
Is there a financial decision you’ve been putting off because you’re waiting to feel “ready”?
I’d love to hear what’s holding you back — sometimes naming it out loud is the first step to moving past it.
And if you’re not sure where to begin, my Start Here page walks through exactly how I’d approach it if I were starting today.
— Eunice
My Fifty Freedom | Build the wealth that buys back your time