I still cannot believe the numbers. I keep tapping my calculator in disbelief and checking the numbers again .. Could it be true that if I had restrained from buying a £399 3rd Generation iPod in 2003 and instead invested the same amount into Apple shares that I would today have a £72,661 stake in the world’s largest technology company?
With a national pension crisis [1] emerging in the UK and a clear need for younger people to increase their pension contributions [2], comparecurrency.com decided to investigate the often conflicting relationship between buying the latest tech gadgets and saving for retirement.
Restraining from buying the latest new tech can be hard. Genius ad campaigns and multi-million marketing budgets excel at convincing us that technology can make our lives simpler, quench our thirst for knowledge and save us valuable time. But what if those very same technology purchases are seriously inhibiting our ability to save for our old age.
The early 00’s witnessed a huge technological leap with mp3 players. The most popular was of course the iPod. If we had restrained from buying such devices and invested our hard earned money into buying shares into the very same company that sold them, what would have happened? The results are astounding! A modest investment of £1825 between 2001 and 2005 would now be worth over £200,000.
Infographic source: Compare Currency
