Year	Tom	Rob	Time is money, as demonstrated in the table on your left. You can see that Rob started saving early, $2,000 per year for eight years and some spare change in the ninth year. Assuming an annual rate of 8% for the next 31 years, the value of the account grew to $279,781. Tom put off saving for retirement for eight years, began to save a little in the ninth and religiously saved for the next 30 years, also earning 8% throughout. The account values at the end of 40 years are the same! The difference is that Rob only invested $16,861 while Tom had to invest $63,138 to achieve the same end result. The obvious lesson is this: saving is never easy, but if you can discipline yourself to save early in life you will enjoy a higher quality of retirement – for less total cost. This chart is for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to reflect actual growth rates or investment performance.  This is a hypothetical example of mathematical compounding and does not represent the performance of any specific investment product or class of investments.  Rate of return will vary over time, particularly for long-term investments.  The values shown do not reflect product fees, charges, or taxes which would reduce returns if included.  Investments offering the potential for higher rates of return also involve a higher degree of risk.  Actual results will vary.
	Invested $63,138	Invested $16,861
1	$0	$2,000
2	$0	$2,000
3	$0	$2,000
4	$0	$2,000
5	$0	$2,000
6	$0	$2,000
7	$0	$2,000
8	$0	$2,000
9	$1,138	$861
10	$2,000	$0
11	$2,000	$0
12	$2,000	$0
13	$2,000	$0
14	$2,000	$0
15	$2,000	$0
16	$2,000	$0
17	$2,000	$0
18	$2,000	$0
19	$2,000	$0
20	$2,000	$0
21	$2,000	$0
22	$2,000	$0
23	$2,000	$0
24	$2,000	$0
25	$2,000	$0
26	$2,000	$0
27	$2,000	$0
28	$2,000	$0
29	$2,000	$0
30	$2,000	$0
31	$2,000	$0
32	$2,000	$0
33	$2,000	$0
34	$2,000	$0
35	$2,000	$0
36	$2,000	$0
37	$2,000	$0
38	$2,000	$0
39	$2,000	$0
40	$2,000	$0
Account	$279,781	$279,781
Value: