Cost of Procrastination



Topics: Procrastination, cost, fear, inaction, investing, retirement
Author: Andrew Clough
Date: 24 Feb 2016


Why procrastination is a problem for your finances

Inaction is the one thing that is guaranteed to stop you from making progress financially. Because the truth is this - as long as you're being pro-active and finding a way to invest part of every pay-cheque you're going to be ok.

Over the last 11 years my business has conducted more than 2,000 investment education workshops for individual clients, and by far the biggest reason people give for not investing or not planning for their retirement, is a lack of knowledge about how to get ahead financially, and on basic investment concepts such as good debt & bad debt, the power of leverage, or how negative gearing works.

Without this basic knowledge, we feel as though we're walking in pitch black. Our fear that investing money is complex or difficult or expensive wins out, and we don't go there.


The power of (un)familiarity

A lack of knowledge harms us not because it causes us to do the wrong thing, but because it causes us to do NOTHING. If you've ever been somewhere unfamiliar in the dark, you'll know the feeling of fear that creeps over you - not because you're in any real danger, but just because you can't see what's out there.

The trick to gaining confidence in less familiar territory is simply to make it more familiar. Knowledge can act like a torch to remove the doubts, make it less scary, and make us comfortable taking that first step.

To help you out, we have a bunch of free resources at the end of this article to get you started.


Why "I have plenty of time" is so costly

If you invest $10k in 2025 at a 7% return you'll have $81k in 2055 (30 years). But if you invest in 2015 instead, it's invested for 40 years instead of 30. In this time it grows to $163k - that's double. So waiting that first 10 years costs you $82k. This is why inaction is so costly, and why the next few years will make a huge difference to your wealth.

And that's only a $10k example! The cost of waiting to purchase your $300k investment property are huge.


Get familiar with these key concepts...

You'll never feel comfortable investing until you are familiar with these three concepts - Negative Gearing, Positive Gearing, and Capital Growth.

Main Street Group's Property of the Week Club will get you familiar with how to go about choosing properties to invest in.

The articles are free, and the Property of the Week Club is free. Get up to speed - and once the road ahead is well lit, it's not so scary.


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