Marriage - Is very much like investing in the market

This weekend marked the 24th anniversary of my wife and I getting married.  I somehow managed to persuade her that traditionally for 24 years you get to cook your partner a barbecue and drink beer in the garden.

It has been an interesting nearly quarter century. We have lived together and apart in several countries and managed to bring up 3 amazing children and a cat and a dog. I always joke that the best way to maintain a happy marriage is to live in separate countries to which she replies 'when are you leaving again?' Oh how we laugh!

As an aside note I should say we were very traditional and didn't live together before we got married.  When we got back from honeymoon she thought she had been burgled because I had just rocked up and thrown all my stuff in her flat all over the place.  We got a cleaner very shortly afterwards.

Anyway apart from the vast amount of funny stories I could tell the purpose of this short scribble is to show like long term relationships it is better over term to be invested than not.

Being a number junkie I like to know the effects of compound returns over time and to that end I worked out the effects of growth in a handy excel sheet below.

If you left the money in the bank over 20 years with a 1% return you would  (apart from the fact inflation would outpace the returns) get a mahoosive  22% return.  

The S and P has returned an average of 9% I think over the last 15 years - if we take that as a 20 year projection and you had just placed the money in an etf you would be sitting on 460% gains.

I am not a rocket scientist but this handy visualisation should be motivation enough for each and every you to consider moving your excess cash into investments. Even the most cautious funds should be able to return over 3% returns a year and you will be able to negate the effects of inflation by being invested.

Like marriage it is very worth it to be in it for the long term and although short term gains are great over time being invested is clearly better than not.

Best 

Don