Growth that's calculated on your gains as well as on your original money. Because the base keeps getting bigger, each round of growth has more to work with than the last. It's the main reason time in the game tends to matter more than the size of what you started with.
Simple Versus Compounding
With simple growth, you'd earn on your original amount forever. With compounding, what you earned joins the pile and starts earning too. Same idea as keeping replacement heifers instead of selling every calf — the herd itself starts producing.
We're not going to run a projection for you here. Any number we picked would be a guess dressed up as a fact, and the concept doesn't need one to be clear.
Why Time Does the Heavy Lifting
The early years look unimpressive and the late ones do most of the work, because that's when the base is largest. Which means the years you can't get back are the cheapest ones you had.
That's the honest argument for starting with a small amount now instead of a serious amount later.
It Is Not a Promise
Compounding describes how growth accumulates. It is not a promise that growth will happen, and it says nothing about what any particular thing will do. Values move, sometimes down, and the math doesn't protect you from that.
What it will do for a specific plan of yours depends on specifics — that's a conversation, with your CPA in the room for the tax side.
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