New Delhi, Oct. 27 -- When it comes to investing, there is no bigger benefit than starting as soon as possible. Time rather than big amounts is what helps build your monthly contributions into a significant corpus, where even a delay of five years can make a big difference to the final accumulated amount.

Today, we calculate how an investment of Rs.3,500 per month in systematic investment plans (SIPs), can grow your corpus over Rs.3.09 crore over a period of 30 years.

We will calculate the investment over a period of 30 years, with 12% p.a. rate of return and 10% annual step up in investment amount.

This means that for the first year, assuming you begin at age 25, Rs.3,500 is invested each month, and the next year, at age 26, you incre...