The most common financial regret I hear from people in their 40s and 50s is the same thing: not starting to invest earlier.

Not 'I wish I'd picked better stocks.' Not 'I wish I'd saved more in a single year.' The regret is almost always about starting later than they could have.

This is consistent with the math. Starting at 22 vs 32 is not a 10-year difference in outcomes — it's closer to a 2x difference in final wealth, because of how compounding works on early contributions.

The implication for younger people reading this: the single best financial decision available to you right now, today, is to start investing whatever you can afford, in the broadest cheapest index fund you can access, and not stop. Not optimize first, not wait for a better moment. Start now with something, anything.