Getting rich slowly: why boring investing can pay off

Open any social media app and chances are you’ll be hit with the latest ‘get rich’ scheme. They usually share a few common features: a comparison to a historic company or asset that boomed, real (or fake) endorsements from other investors, and unrealistically high returns.

To be fair to social media apps, you’ll also find these schemes disguised as a hot tip in conversations at your local bar, or in the back of a cab.

While not all of these are fake and a rare few do indeed make their investors wealthy, most will not get you there. If you want to become rich, the answer is far more boring, but the odds are typically better than jumping in on speculative investments.

Get rich slowly by using high-quality investments, dollar-cost averaging and the power of compound interest.

It’s the old tortoise and the hare analogy in real life. Taking it a step further, there’s a reason tortoises tend to live longer, healthier lives…

A refresher on dollar-cost averaging

Dollar-cost averaging is putting money into your investments at regular intervals, regardless of what the market is doing, which averages the price you pay for investments over time. Sometimes you may have bought at highs, at other times lows, but you are not trying to time the market so which may make the average price you pay more manageable.

It’s a regular investing plan where you put in a set amount regularly, be it $100 monthly or a larger sum quarterly. Some trading apps will allow you to automate this where you select the amount and timing and where the money is invested, such as equally across a few ETFs or companies.

To give you an example in practice, imagine investing $6,000 in WiseTech (ASX: WTC) across the first six months of 2026.

WiseTech’s share price fell over this period so dollar-cost averagers would have gotten a better result than lump sum investors – the reverse may have been true had the share price risen over the period. Generally, the aim of dollar-cost averaging is to do it over a long period – say, five years or more, to reduce the effect of short-term volatility and build a consistent investing habit.

There are pros and cons to using dollar-cost averaging.

You could end up paying more compared with investing a lump sum depending on the market conditions and the investment you choose. 

For some investors, a lump sum also offers greater exposure to compounding returns and income like dividends or interest payments while potentially avoiding repeated brokerage costs. 

For those investors who don’t have a lump sum to invest, this can act as a regular and consistent form of investing with the aim of reaching a similar outcome to those with a lump sum. It can smooth out average costs, manage volatility and help investors take emotional biases out of their decisions.

The power of compounding

Investors often forget compounding – that’s where, as your principal grows by reinvesting interest or other returns, you then earn returns based on the growing figure. That’s assuming you don’t touch the returns or interest and leave them to grow.

In simple terms: interest on interest, or returns on returns.

You can see this in a simple example below using MoneySmart’s Compound Interest calculator. It assumes a base annual interest rate of 5%, with monthly compounding.

If you deposit a lump sum of $12,000 and leave it for 10 years, you would end up with $7,764 in interest and a total amount of $19,764. You can see what this looks like in the image below:

Now, let’s say you don’t have $12,000 to start with but you want to have deposited that amount by the end of 10 years. This is where you can bring in the idea of a regular savings plan/consistent deposits.

To reach that amount, you could put $100 in consistently, or use an alternative savings approach – say the highest lump sum you can spare now, $1,200 for example, and then monthly payments of $100 starting in one year.

Although this approach starts with a larger initial deposit, delaying the monthly contributions means less money is invested for as long.

The consistent monthly amount would leave you with $3,593 in interest and a total amount of $15,693, whereas the lump sum start and delayed monthly payments would leave you with $3,485 in interest and a total amount of $15,485. It’s not a huge difference, but every little bit can count.

The same principle can apply beyond savings interest: reinvesting dividends and investment returns may help build a sizeable portfolio over time.

The power of compounding and dollar-cost averaging together

While the MoneySmart calculator uses a base example where you are earning around 5% interest a year, imagine what could happen if you were compounding your investments in the equity market and using a dollar-cost averaging plan?

To demonstrate, I’ve used the Stock Market and Dollar-Cost Averaging Calculator available at noelwhittaker.com.au/calculators.

Say you invested $12,000 in the All Ordinaries Accumulation Index over 10 years ending 31 December 2025 and reinvested all dividends and capital gains. You would have seen an annualised return of 10.28% and the final value of your portfolio would be $31,920.

Now let’s consider the version where you use dollar-cost averaging and invest $100 a month for 10 years because you don’t have a $12,000 lump sum.

In this version, your final portfolio would be $20,083, representing annualised compound returns of around 10.1%.

Note that this is not a like-for-like test of dollar-cost averaging versus lump-sum investing, because the $100 monthly investor does not have the full $12,000 available on day one. Instead, it illustrates how regular investing can still build meaningful wealth when a lump sum is not available.

Is the total amount contributed the same? Yes

Is the final amount different? Also yes – but don’t be disheartened.

The point is that even small consistent amounts can have a big pay-off if you don’t have a large lump sum to start with and the sooner and longer you invest, the better.

Quality and strategy matter

Remember that you can only ‘get rich slowly’ if your investments are actually doing the work for you.

What does this mean?

Quality compounding investments in a mapped-out strategy with clear goals.

No splashing your consistent cash on speculative investments in the hope they *might* pay off. This is a conservative approach to money – it doesn’t mean you can’t have a separate allocation for more aggressive investments but your baseline is consistent quality investments that match your strategy.

It could look like a portfolio of a few select ETFs or funds with exposure to different parts of the market, or a more diversified pool of companies you’ve selected with a financial adviser. These are generally buy-and-hold type investments that you review quarterly or annually to ensure they still meet your goals and strategy, and you identify a set allocation to be invested in each as part of your regular investment plan.

It’s not about making emotional plays, but sticking to a regular, consistent investment approach.

Boring can be beautiful

The idea of getting rich slowly through regular investing, dollar-cost averaging and compounding may not sound fun – but it doesn’t need to be. The fun part is how you get to spend your money once you reach your goals.

It can be valuable to speak to a financial adviser to understand which approach may suit your circumstances and goals. These strategies may not suit everyone – but knowing the options exist is part of working out your strategy.

At the end of the day, remember, the sooner you get started, the more time compounding has to work for you, and that's something to get excited about.