The Hidden Costs of Inaction
The Hidden Costs of Inaction: How Procrastination Destroys More Wealth Than the Market Ever Will
Let me tell you something I’ve learned after years of helping people plan their finances: The stock market might crash once or twice (maybe thrice) in your lifetime. But procrastination? That thing is undefeated.
It’s like a sneaky ninja that lives in your calendar and whispers, “We’ll handle the 401(k) thing right after vacation.” And then suddenly it’s five years later, you’re still not sure what a Roth IRA is, and your financial plan is whatever your cousin Gary posted on Facebook.
“I Meant to Start Saving, But…”
Everyone means to start saving or start saving more now that that one thing is paid for. Just like I meant to start running after I bought those new shoes in 2021. They’re still in the box, by the way. Real clean. Never touched the outdoors.
One of the most expensive sentences in the English language is: “I’ll get to it later.”
Later usually turns into “next month,” which turns into “after the holidays,” which turns into “Wait, why am I 53 and still Googling ‘how much do I need to retire’ at 1 a.m.?”
The Math Nobody Talks About
Here’s some painful math. If you invest $200 a month starting at age 25, and your money grows at 7%, by age 65 you’ll have around $525,000. If you wait until 35 to start? That number drops to around $245,000.
Same monthly amount. Just a ten-year delay. You basically paid $280,000 for ten years of indecision and Netflix.
That’s like buying a Toyota Camry... every year... and never driving it.
The Emotional Side of It
I get it. Money stuff is confusing. It’s filled with words like “asset allocation” and “fiduciary” and “risk tolerance,” which sounds like something from a Marvel movie. And every time you do try to figure it out, you fall down a YouTube rabbit hole where some guy with too much hair gel is yelling about gold bars and “the collapse of the dollar.”
So yeah—people freeze. They do nothing. And the cost of doing nothing quietly piles up like laundry in a teenager’s room.
What Inaction Actually Costs
- Missed compounding (the only magic trick the IRS hasn’t taxed yet)
- Higher insurance premiums because you waited until you had one mysterious back pain
- Unclaimed employer 401(k) matches (aka free money you turned down because you were “too busy”)
- Probate costs because you never got around to setting up a will or trust
- And let’s not forget the hours spent worrying, avoiding, and overthinking—without ever doing anything
- Inaction is the only strategy that feels safe... right until it’s not.
So What Do You Do?
You don’t have to do everything at once. Just do something.
- Set up a call with a financial advisor (we’re nice, I promise.)
- Open an investment account - takes us a few minutes to set this up for you.
- Review your beneficiaries. (Spoiler: your ex probably shouldn’t still be on there.)
- Make a basic plan. Even a bad plan is better than no plan—because you can fix a bad plan. You can’t fix silence. We can help with this. I'm a nerd and love making numbers do a little dance that makes people happy when they see the big move at the end (which is to say the plan works and you don't worry)
Final Thought
The market will dip. It will crash. But the biggest risk to your retirement isn’t Wall Street. It’s the voice in your head that says, “We’ll figure it out next week.”
Next week turns into next year. And eventually, you're sitting in a recliner at 70 years old wondering if you can afford to retire—or if you have to become a greeter at the same store you bought those never-worn running shoes from.
Let’s not let that happen.
You don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to get it going. We're here to help.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cory Carlton is the CEO and an Investment Advisor Representative. That means he, and all our IARs, are fiduciaries, and that means we must do what is in our clients' best interest. We would do that anyway, but our license makes it "official." Cory loves helping people find solutions to their financial and insurance problems. He keeps things simple and guides our clients through every step of the process. All of our advisors do that too. Pretty cool. When he is not helping clients, you can find Cory with his wife and four kids. Generally, they will be found doing something outside, like archery or going for bike rides. He is also a bit of a bookworm, so when the family's day chills out, which does not happen that often, he, his wife, and kids hang out with some good books.