With no risk comes little to no reward.
Saving up enough money for retirement without investing it at some point along the way is (to put it mildly) very difficult. Even if you had 50 years to save $1 million, you’d have to stash away $20,000 annually, and that’s not even considering the fact inflation will reduce the buying power of that $1 million over time. Consider this: $1 million in 2022 has about the same purchasing power as $150,000 did 50 years ago.
To ease your path to becoming financially comfortable in retirement, you should invest some of your money, specifically in stocks. They may be riskier than other investments like bonds or certificates of deposit (CDs), but that risk is more often than not worth the reward — especially if you’re investing long term in major indexes and blue-chip companies.
This post originally appeared at The Motley Fool.