Start Young, Retire like Buffett: When should you start investing?

By: Renee Sharapov

“When should I start investing?” The age-old finance question most people have struggled to answer. To find one, we’ve turned to Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and a multi-billionaire, to discover the truth.

​His answer, the age that gives you enough time. Beginning his investing journey at only 11 years old, in 1942, Buffett bought his first shares of Cities Service for $114.75, he explained in an interview with Yahoo Finance. Soon after, the stock plummeted, and once it slightly recovered, Buffet sold it for a mean $5 a share. If he would have waited, he would have seen Cities Service increase to $202 a share.

​Through this story, Buffet doesn’t highlight the importance of starting young but instead the value of compounding and buying and holding. To this day, he follows a value investing strategy, purchasing stocks when they are under market price and maintaining them as they grow. He advises against panicking when a stock drops, but instead continuing to buy into the market. Essentially, his strategy avoids hyperbolic discounting, a human tendency to value immediate small returns over prolonged larger ones, and follows the idea that the market will always bounce back. But the most effective way to make use of this strategy is to start young for two reasons: compounding and risk management.

​The younger an investor plunges into the market, the more time they have to take advantage of  compound interest. This is when you take the interest you’ve gained from your initial investment and reinvest it, exponentially shooting up the value of your initial investment. If you begin at the age of 18, you will have much more time for your shares to compound and grow within the market than, say, an individual who began at 40.

​Likewise, starting young means you can afford to take the risk of making more aggressive investments. Higher risks often means greater rewards but especially if you give your investment the time to ride along through the economy’s ups and downs.

​Now at 95 years old, Buffet's investments have had 74 years to compound and ride the market, which has made him the billions he owns today. Not to mention, if he had stuck to his strategy earlier on, he could have potentially profited off of his initial investments even more. We mention his story to highlight the time starting young gives you and the value of conducting proper research in the early stages of your investing journey. As a young investor looking for success in the market, it is important to look into resources and find a strategy that works for you by reading articles, taking courses, and speaking to seasoned investors.

​Now that you have had the chance to learn from the world’s best, we ask you, will you start now and retire rich, or miss out on the high returns waiting for you?

Works Cited

“3 Reasons Why You Should Start Investing Young .” Www.globalcu.org, www.globalcu.org/financial-planning/learn-investing/invest-young/. Accessed 7 Sept. 2025.

Breen, Amanda. “11-Year-Old Warren Buffett Made a Big Mistake with His First Investment. Here’s the Lesson That Helped Him Achieve a $145 Billion Net Worth.” Entrepreneur, 9 Nov. 2024, www.entrepreneur.com/money-finance/you-can-learn-from-warren-buffetts-first-investment-mistake/482549. Accessed 7 Sept. 2025.

Pan, Jing. “Warren Buffett Once Shared How He Could’ve Turned $114 into $400K with His Dead-Simple Signature Investing Style.” Yahoo Finance, 2 June 2024, finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-once-shared-couldve-095900140.html. Accessed 7 Sept. 2025.