Tama didn’t think he was ready to invest.
It wasn’t like he didn’t understand what to do, or didn’t know that starting early mattered. Some of his friends, who were already investing, had been harping on at him for ages to start. He’d smile at them and say:
“I’m not ready yet – soon.”
“It’s not about timing the market,” they’d say, “it’s about time in it.”
And Tama knew that.
Still, he hesitated.
Waiting for the right time.
The thing is, it wasn’t the getting started part that was holding Tama back – it was the amount he thought he could invest. Tama had calculated that he could probably spare about $50 a week, but he didn’t think that was anywhere near enough. That didn’t match the amount he had in his head, the one where you invested thousands of dollars at a time. Fifty dollars didn’t feel worth it.
So he waited.
The truth is, no matter how long Tama waited, or how many times he filed away the idea of investing, it never really went away. It was a persistent little curiosity that would arise with every payday, or whenever he looked at his bank account and his budget: “Could I move things around a little, or say no to this over there?” Not really, not to the point where he’d get to the number he thought he needed. So, he’d put the idea of investing to one side again until he had more to put in.
Eventually, the indecision – the ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’ – got to the point where starting began to feel like a bigger step than it really was. And each time he did that, doing nothing felt more and more reasonable. The focus on getting it right became more important and more rigid than actually investing any amount of money. Tama knew once he started there was no more observing from the sidelines. No more hypothetical decisions. Starting meant living with some uncertainty.
And that part – the not knowing – was uncomfortable because it meant crossing over into the doing.
There was no ‘hallelujah moment’ where Tama’s mindset changed. The decision was gradual and possibly influenced by his friends who showed him that even when markets moved, their contributions stayed consistent and at an amount that fit in with their lives. There was a sneaking suspicion that maybe his mates were onto something and that maybe Tama had been asking the wrong question – was it really the amount that he was stuck on?
Could he fit investing around his life, rather than invest to live?
Tama had already worked out that he could spare a maximum of $50 – did it have to be $50 exactly? This was what was holding him back – thinking of investing as something bigger and almost outside of the normal rhythm of his life, not part of.
Eventually, he realised he didn’t need to wait for the perfect moment to begin, and so he started. Not with thousands of dollars, like he’d imagined he needed to invest, but an amount he knew he’d be able to follow through on.
At first, Tama wondered if he’d made the right decision. There were no big jumps or obvious signs things were ‘working’. If anything, it almost justified his earlier decision not to invest, making him wonder if he was right and that small amounts really didn’t matter.
But, the thing is, he’d started, which meant he’d stopped thinking about starting. Which meant he wasn’t revisiting the same decision he’d revisited time and time again – waiting for that perfect moment.
Tama had made his move.
And because of that, this made it easier to keep going, even if it didn’t always feel like much was happening. The changes to his balance were slow at first, but they did change, and continued to grow with his regular contributions. Not in big leaps, but in a way that felt steady and consistent.
The best part was that it didn’t take much effort to maintain. There were no constant decisions to make, no need to react to what was happening around him. Tama just kept on keeping on. Investing was no longer something he had to think about.
It became something he did.
After a few years, Tama could see that it wasn’t really the amount that had held him back. It was the story he’d built around getting started: the idea that starting small is somehow limiting, that he needed to start perfectly with the right amount, at the right time, with full confidence.
Starting small is still starting.
By being comfortable with an amount that he could sustain over time, he’d put himself in a position where he could build momentum from day one. If you’ve been waiting for the amount to feel big enough, maybe it can help to look at investing from another angle. It’s not whether it’s enough to matter today, but whether it’s enough to help you start.
So it can matter tomorrow.
Tempo is designed to make that first step feel straightforward – so you can start in a way that works for you, and build from there. Download Tempo today, and join in minutes.
Investing involves a level of risk. There are no guarantees. As well as investments going up in value they could also go down in value.
