Starting your investment journey early comes with a lot of advantages. You have more time to achieve a financial goal on time and you can achieve the desired corpus with a smaller amount of investment. Let's assume you wish to accumulate a corpus of Rs 5 crore for when you turn 60. If you start an SIP at the age of 25, then you have 35 years and need to do a monthly payment of Rs 7,770 in an equity scheme, which gives a return of 12 per cent per annum. But if you start at 35, then you will need a monthly instalment of Rs. 26,600 to achieve the same corpus.