What if you invested $500 a month starting at the worst possible moment?
- Banks collapsing. The Dow down 89%. Unemployment at 25%. The most terrifying financial environment in American history. And you just... kept buying.
The evidence
$500/month into an 80/20 portfolio from 1932 to 1962. Total contributions: $180,000. Final value: $542,000 — a 3x return on your money.
Dollar-cost averaging turned the Depression into a buying opportunity. When the market was at rock bottom, each $500 bought more shares. When recovery came — through wartime industrialisation, the postwar boom, the 1950s expansion — those cheap shares multiplied.
The caveat
This was one of the best possible starting points for dollar-cost averaging because it began at the worst possible moment for lump-sum investing. Starting at the bottom means every subsequent purchase is at a higher price. The 3x return is impressive, but it reflects a specific and unrepeatable starting condition.
The broader lesson holds: consistent investing through catastrophic markets has historically been rewarded. Not because crashes are good — but because buying during them means accumulating shares at prices that, in hindsight, look extraordinary.
Run this scenario on Bellavia's savings simulator.
