Stop waiting for the right time. There is no right time.

The S&P 500 returned 13% annualized over the last 15 years. Anyone who waited for "the right time" to start investing in 2010 because "the market was about to crash again" missed roughly 500% in cumulative gains. Here is the brutal part: they were not wrong that the market was risky. There were real corrections, real scares, real recessions in that window. They were wrong about something much more expensive: the cost of waiting. Opportunity cost is the single largest loss in personal finance, and it never shows up on any statement, which is exactly why nobody fixes it.

Take $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 in 2010 and held through 2025. At that 13% annualized rate it becomes roughly $63,000. The same $10,000 sitting in cash earning an average of 1.5% becomes about $12,400.

The waiter lost $50,600. Not because they picked a bad investment. Because they picked no investment, year after year, each time for a reason that sounded prudent that month. The crash they were waiting to avoid would have needed to be catastrophic and permanent to cost them what the waiting actually cost them. No crash in American history has been permanent. The waiting always is, for the years it covers.

And before you say 2010 was cherry-picked: the same logic holds from almost any starting year, because the long-run direction of the index has survived world wars, stagflation, the dot-com bust, and 2008. The entry decade changes the magnitude. It rarely changes the conclusion.

Loss aversion. The pain of losing money is roughly twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining the same amount, which means your brain treats a possible 20% drawdown as a much bigger event than a missed 100% gain. Cash feels stable. Stocks feel dangerous. So your brain rewards the choice that quietly bleeds you and punishes the one that builds you.

There is a second trick your brain plays: waiting feels like a decision you can reverse any time, so it never feels like a choice at all. But "I will start next month" executed twelve times is a one-year decision. Executed sixty times, it is the most expensive five-year decision you never knew you made.

Dollar cost averaging: a fixed amount, invested on a fixed schedule, into a broad index fund, regardless of price, regardless of headlines, regardless of how scary the week was.

Some buys will be at highs. Some will be at lows. They average out, and the averaging is the point, because it removes the timing question entirely. You are no longer asking "is now the right time?" That question is dead. The schedule answers it forever: yes, a little bit, always.

People with a process never ask when. People without a process ask when forever, and the honest answer to "when will it feel safe?" is never. Markets at highs feel like a top. Markets at lows feel like a collapse. Markets in the middle feel uncertain. There is no price at which the feeling you are waiting for arrives. I am not guessing about that. I watched myself do it, and I watch readers do it every month.

Started at 22 with $200 a month into a basic index fund. No timing, no analysis, no edge. Added every paycheck. Raised the amount with every raise. By 27 I had over $20k. By 30, over $80k. None of it required predicting anything. All of it required not waiting. The only impressive thing about it is how unimpressive it was, month to month, the entire time.

"But the market is at all-time highs." The market spends a large share of its existence at or near all-time highs. That is what a rising line does. Waiting for a discount that may arrive in three years while skipping three years of compounding is usually a losing trade, and if the discount comes, your monthly schedule buys it automatically anyway.

"But I only have $50 a month." The habit is worth more than the amount. The investor who starts with $50 and raises it beats the one waiting until they can "do it properly" with $1,000, because the second one is still waiting.

"But what if it crashes right after I start?" Then your next scheduled buys happen at lower prices, which is the best thing that can happen to someone two decades from needing the money. A crash early in your investing life is a gift wrapped in panic.

Open a Roth IRA or a brokerage account. Set an auto-deposit for any amount, even $25 every two weeks. Pick one low-cost broad index fund. Done. That is the entire start, and the hardest financial decision of your life just happened in fifteen minutes. Everything after this is execution, and execution is just the schedule running while you live your life.

There is no right time. There is only now or later. Now compounds. Later does not. Stop waiting.

Read next: Why Most People Stay Broke | The One Money Habit That Changed Everything

*Disclaimer: MentorSurge is not a financial advisor and this is not financial advice. This post is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security, and all examples are hypothetical. Investing involves substantial risk of loss including loss of principal, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Numbers cited were accurate when written and change constantly. Always do your own research and consult a licensed professional before making decisions with real money.*