In your 20s, everything is new: your first real job, your first house, perhaps your first serious financial commitments. All that aside, when you are still making a modest income, it can seem next to impossible to begin investing.

But here is the trick: you do not build wealth by waiting to get rich. It is created by beginning small, being consistent, and letting time do the heavy lifting. Here is how:

Develop a small safety net during investment

Many people wait to have enough money to invest, and that is where they go wrong. If you wait, you will have missed out on the good growth time. It is best to balance: have a small emergency pot so that you are not worried, but invest a small sum every month. In that manner, you are safeguarding yourself as well as investing in the future.

Transform excess money into investment power

On occasion, we all receive little spurts of unexpected money, in the form of holiday bonuses, side-hustle money, or even birthday gifts. Rather than letting that money go to waste on temporary spending, put it back into your investments. They can seem like small amounts at the time, but decades down the road, they can bring you a significant increase in wealth.

Begin small, but be consistent

You do not have to start off with hundreds a month. Investing the same money you spend on a night out, on a regular basis, will accumulate over the years. How small the contribution is doesn’t matter. It is the habit that counts. You can enhance it further with automation. This process eliminates the urge to procrastinate.

Focus on time, not timing

Money is tight, and it is so easy to postpone investing until the right time comes. However, the ideal moment hardly ever arrives. The most important thing is ensuring that you leave your investments as long as you can to grow.

Decades of small investments can outweigh the big investments made in the future. Investors like James Rothschild suggest starting early, diversifying, and thinking long term to build wealth over time.

Choose simple over complex investments

The sheer number of ways to invest is overwhelming. In the 20s, the most appropriate thing to do is to make it simple. Select easy and cheap investments that you know and stick to them. When you are young, it is more beneficial to pursue straightforward and consistent growth than complex and complicated strategies.

Avoid lifestyle inflation to free up money

It is possible to accumulate wealth on a small salary. You can equally free up more money in order to save. You can achieve this through:

• Living below your means
• Not to take on needless debt
• Spending purposefully.

This leaves you with greater space to invest without straining your budget.

The takeaway

You don’t need to have a huge salary or wait for the most appropriate time to build wealth in your 20s. It is a matter of developing intelligent behaviors: investing, reinvesting more money, being simple, and making decisions that are going to put some cash in your pocket in the future.