I didn't gamble it. I didn't get scammed. I didn't put it on some high-flying tech stock that cratered.

I just didn't invest $400 a month in my twenties.

That's it. That's the whole story. And it cost me a million dollars.

Here's how it happened. I graduated college at 22. Got a decent corporate job — salary, benefits, the whole package. I thought I was doing well. Rent was $1,200. Car payment: $400. Student loans: $350. Add in Chipotle lunches, happy hours near the office, and the occasional "I deserve this" purchase, and suddenly there was nothing left.

Not nothing-nothing. I had money. I just didn't have investment money. Because that was a thing for later, when I made more, when I had a cushion, when I figured out how the stock market worked. Always later.

I wasn't unusual. 70% of graduates carry student loans averaging $37,000. The financial industry tells you to "start early" but doesn't explain what early actually costs you if you don't. So I'll do it for them.

Run the numbers. $400 a month from age 22 to 67, at 8% average annual return. That's the historical floor of the US stock market — not optimistic, not cherry-picked, just what the S&P 500 has actually done over every 30+ year period since 1928.

Read that bottom line again. $38,400 in contributions turned into $1,000,000 in lost growth. That's not a rounding error. That's a retirement. That's the difference between "I'm comfortable" and "I'm worried."

And if you're 30 now, reading this, thinking you'll just catch up? You'd need to double your monthly contribution to $800 to land in the same place. Good luck finding an extra $400 a month that you couldn't find before.

The financial industry's advice on this is maddeningly vague. "Start early." "Time in the market beats timing the market." Yeah, thanks. Tell that to a 24-year-old staring at rent, student loans, and a social life pulling their money in every direction.

Here's what I wish someone had told me at 22:

You don't need to invest a lot. You need to invest now. $200 a month at 22 is worth more than $600 a month at 35. The math is not even close. Compounding doesn't care about your intentions — it only cares about time. And time is the one resource you can never get back.

Even one or two years of waiting have a measurable negative effect on your future. Not a theoretical one. A real one, with a dollar sign in front of it.

I lost a million dollars in my twenties. Not because I was stupid or reckless. Because I was normal. And normal, when it comes to investing, is catastrophically expensive.

Don't be normal.