It’s never too late to start investing. It’s a mantra we will live and die by here at The Motley Fool. Even if you’re 50 years of age and starting off with zilch by way of savings and investments, there’s still time to build a handsome retirement nest egg with UK shares.
I’m not going to say it’ll be easy to do for those closing in on retirement. A time frame of around a decade-and-a-half means that you need to be extremely disciplined in saving money each and every month. Mistakes have to be far and few between, too, meaning that the importance of devising and following a sound investment strategy from the get-go is critical. A global recession that threatens to damage corporate earnings over the next few years at least is another obstacle that stock investors need to hurdle.
History shows us that none of these problems are insurmountable, though. In fact, believe there’s never been a better time to begin investing with UK shares given the wealth of information out there designed to put you on the right track.
Play the stock market crash
The 2020 stock market crash is another reason why 50-year-olds can expect to get rich by retirement. Why? Well it allows investors with a sound investment strategy to build their stock portfolios at ultra-low cost. This means that they can maximise their returns when they come to eventually sell their UK shares (should they choose to do so). Over the long term the value of their shares is likely to have grown as the economic recovery has clicked through the gears.
Studies show us that share investors who invest for 10 years or more tend to make returns of between 8% and 10% a year. And the market crash improves your chances of hitting those heady heights. Someone who manages to buy a few hundred pounds’ worth of UK shares each month can expect to make big profits in the fullness of time.
Retire in comfort with UK shares
Let me show you how this works in real life. Let’s say you set aside £400 a month to invest in UK shares. By reinvesting the dividends you receive from your stocks you can expect to make, over a 15-year period, somewhere between £135,000 and £159,000 based on those proven rates of return.
Unless you’re extremely, extremely lucky you won’t make that sort of return anywhere else. You certainly won’t by saving in a cash account. Let’s say that you park that £400 a month into an instant-access Cash ISA instead. Should current interest rates stay the same you’re likely to make a return of £77k over 15 years at best (the best-paying Cash ISA on the market only pays 0.9%).
This is why I invest the bulk of my money in UK shares. Whether you’re 25 or 50 years of age you can still expect to get rich by buying high-quality shares. And there’s plenty of help out there to put you on the path to making big investment returns.