More and more, I'm realizing that relationships are in investment. Whether it's a friendship, family relationship, or a marriage, your return is based on what you pour into them. In my business classes in college, one of my favorite things to study and learn about was compound interest. It was so inspiring to know the importance and benefits of investing early on in life. If you're unfamiliar with compound interest, I've included a chart below to help you visualize it.
 |
smartconsumergroup.com |
You can see from this chart that when Saver B starts investing earlier on in life, the time value of his money allows for much greater gaining potential. So much greater, in fact, that even though Saver A invested 5 times the amount of Saver B, Saver B gained more than $400k more than Saver A by the time they reached their retirement age. Crazy, huh?!
The reason why I illustrate this is that if we invest in our relationships early on and continue to do it frequently as time progresses, in the end it will produce a greater return (a more meaningful relationship). If instead, we just wait until a crisis threatens to tear the relationship apart or until we realize that we've missed out on many important opportunities, investing in the relationship will not have as great of an impact unless we have already laid a firm foundation of respect, trust, and love.
Tomorrow's Lesson: Financial Peace = Peace
No comments:
Post a Comment