In order to achieve anything worthwhile, you must pay a price. Or as others would put it, you must sacrifice something to get something else.

While i was studying financial management, i was taught that i should always make my day-to-day financial decisions with respect to my long-term goals. I never quite understood the impact of that lesson until several years after college.

There are events which seem very good or satisfying today but they have a negative effect to your well being in the long-term. Let's consider two simple examples.

One - Making several un-necessary purchases totalling $200 a month may seem insignificant. But if you consider that investing $200 a month for 30 years in a mutual fund that earns 12% interest a year amounts to $1.3 million dollars, you can then understand the pain of regret suffered by 96% of retirees today who only have $25,000 in their retirement account.

Two - If you are 30 years old and you delay to start your investment account by 10 years, your nest egg on average will be less by $500,000 compared to what it would be if you start investing today.

It takes a lot of discipline to invest $200 a month for 30 years. What would you rather have? The pain of investing $200 a month or the pain of regreting at age 65 that you blew away a chance to retire with a million dollars?