Back to the Financial Future: A Time-Travel Parable About Saving and Investing

Jaeneen Cunningham
Nov 20, 2025
7 min read

Let’s begin with a question: What if you could really travel back in time? Not just in your mind — but literally, in a shiny DeLorean parked in your driveway, like something out of Back to the Future. What if you could go back to 1991, clutching $10,000 in your pocket, and choose exactly where to put that money, knowing what you now know in 2025?

The essence of finance is time travel: saving is about moving resources from the present into the future; financing is about moving resources from the future back to the present.

That’s not just a thought experiment. It’s a way to see how powerful compounding is, how much the decisions we make today shape our future, and — most importantly — how we can act now, in the present, to set ourselves up for a very different future.

Chapter 1: Back to 1991 — A Different World

You climb into the DeLorean. The metallic body gleams. You punch in the date: April 17, 1991 — the day the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) was officially converted into a public company with share capital.

The engine hums. The flux capacitor glows. And in a flash, you are transported. When you step out, things feel familiar yet strange. The world is quieter, simpler — no smartphones, fewer cars, the internet is in its infancy. You smell cheaper petrol, taste simpler coffee. The Reserve Bank Cash Rate is around 17.5%. But that’s less important right now than where you’re going.

In your hand: $10,000, Australian dollars, crisp and ready. Now, polymer bank notes weren't introduced into Australia until 1992. Let's just say the share broker and the bank teller, who you're about to meet, thought you were ahead of your time.

You have two objectives:

Buy $5,000 worth of shares in CBA — on the first public offering, at the IPO price.
Put the $5,000 into a savings vehicle — maybe a term deposit — and let it grow through compounding.

You know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (at least for this trip).

Chapter 2: Planting Seeds — Your Two Choices

A — Investing in Shares

You stroll into a brokerage office. You place an order. The IPO price for CBA in 1991 was $5.00* per share. With $5,000, you could buy 1000 shares (assuming no transaction costs, for simplicity).

You make the purchase, and feel a surge of excitement. You've bought a piece of a newly privatised bank — a large, iconic institution in Australia’s financial system.

You tuck those shares away, imagining the decades ahead.

B — The Savings Route

After you visit the share broker you take your other $5,000 to the bank. You open a term deposit or a high-interest savings account (or something like it). In 1991, interest rates were still very high compared to modern standards; but for the sake of our thought experiment, let's assume you locked in something like 8% p.a., reflecting some of the historically high rates around that time. (this is a simplification; real rates would fluctuate, and you probably wouldn’t get that exact rate for decades, and in 1991 they would very likley have been much higher - they were high all around the world at that time, but 8% is useful for this exercise.)

You commit to leaving that money untouched. No withdrawals. You let compounding do its work.

Chapter 3: Back to 2025 — The Results

Time whirs again in the DeLorean. There's a blur of rapid impressions, a feeling of falling, and images of the environment and celestial bodies moving at unnatural speeds, you return to 2025, stepping out once more into your driveway of you home. But this time, you're holding not just memories — you're holding the outcomes of your choices.

Outcome A — The CBA Investment

$5,000 invested in 1991
1,000 CBA shares purchased at $5.00 each
Yesterday’s CBA closing price: $151.30 per share

Today, those 1,000 shares are worth: $151,300. One hundred and fifty-one thousand, three hundred dollars — from a simple $5,000 decision.

And that’s not even counting the immense stream of dividends CBA has paid over 34 years. Or franking credits. Or reinvested payouts. This is just the share price.

That’s the raw power of time + compounding + taking action.

Outcome B — The “Safe” Path: High-Interest Savings

Your conservative interest-bearing savings account didn’t have the fireworks of a booming share. But it still quietly did its job. Your $5,000 grows into something like: $50,225.00

A solid, respectable outcome — no risk, no volatility, no tough decisions.

Safe.

But here’s the punchline:

The safe path gave you $50,000
The investing path gave you $151,000.

And the biggest difference wasn't luck, or timing, or “knowing the market.” It was simply time.

Chapter 4: Reflection — The Power of Time

You close your eyes. You think: Wow. Ten thousand dollars turned into tens of thousands. The share investment gave you something like $150,000 (just on share price), while the savings plan gave you around $50,000 over the same timeframe. Both paths show how time, compounding, and growth can change the story.

But then you remember — this was all with the magic of a DeLorean Time Machine. You were able to go back, make your choice, and come back. Of course you would have done it, knowing what you do now.

Chapter 5: The Future You — Imagine Your Retirement

Now, let’s do another trip — but this time in your mind.

Fast forward from 2025 to your retirement, say age 65 (or whatever feels right for you). Imagine yourself sitting in a sunlit room, maybe by a window overlooking a garden, or near your grandchildren playing, or perhaps traveling somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.

You feel a soft peace in your heart when you think about money:

Your wealth is comfortable. Not just “scraping by.”
You’re not worried every month about paying the mortgage, or whether you should sell your house, or how to fund big life moments.
You can help your kids, or give back, or support causes you care about — without feeling like you're sacrificing your own security.
You know that what you built wasn’t a fluke. It came from consistent action, from thinking ahead, from planting seeds in the past.

In short: you’ve earned the freedom that comes from having made wise decisions. Or have you?

Chapter 6: Time-Travel Again — From the Future to Now

Now imagine another DeLorean moment. But this time, the driver is your Future Self — the version of yourself who is retired, content, and financially secure. From that seat, you look backward — not 30 years this time, but to today, to 2025.

The future you leans forward and says:

You know what mattered most wasn’t just how much you made — it was what you did with what you had. It was the discipline, the decisions, the habit. You need to start now.

You glance at your future self through the windshield, and ask:

What do I need to do today to make that future real?
What habits, decisions, and actions matter most?
How will I commit to saving or investing in a way that makes sense for me — not just for a one-off time-travel fantasy, but for the real-life journey ahead?

Chapter 7: What's Stopping You — Wisdom from the Parable

If you were in that DeLorean in 1991, you wouldn’t have blinked. You wouldn’t have hesitated. You knew the opportunity was massive, and you acted. But now, in 2025, some voices in your head whisper different things:

“what if I lose money?”
“What if I pick the wrong share?”
“Can’t I just wait for a better time, when I'm earning more?”
“I don’t have $10,000 right now.”

These are real doubts. They matter. But the DeLorean parable shows you something else: time is your ally. And even small actions, taken consistently, can lead to remarkable outcomes.

You understand that finance isn’t just about numbers. It’s about mindset. It’s about seeing your money as more than just cash — It's seeds planted in time, as tools for growth, as vehicles for future freedom.

Chapter 8: Call to Action — Your Present-Day Journey

So, what now? Here are practical steps to harness this time-travel mindset today:

Reflect on your “future self.” Close your eyes. Visualize your retirement. Feel what financial freedom would mean for you.
Set a savings or investment plan. Even if it's modest: open a high-yield savings account, set up recurring contributions, or start investing in quality shares or ETFs.
Talk to a coach or advisor. As finance coaches, we often tell clients: understanding where you want to go is just as important as knowing how to get there.
Decide your time horizon. Are you investing for 5, 10, 20, or 30+ years? The longer your horizon, typically, the more powerful compounding becomes.
Automate. Use automatic transfers or investment plans so your money works for you without requiring constant decision-making.
Be consistent. The biggest lever isn’t timing the market. It’s time in the market and smart, consistent behavior.

Conclusion: The True Gift of Time Travel

The DeLorean in our story isn’t just a sci-fi toy. It’s a metaphor. A way to show you the value of time, compounding, and decisiveness. If you could go back to 1991, you’d act boldly — because you’d have the certainty of how much a small seed could grow.

You may not have a real time machine. But you do have something almost as powerful: The opporunity to act today. And every decision you make now — every dollar you save, every investment you plant — is moving resources from your present into your future.

Your future self is waiting in the passenger seat, urging you to act. Will you hit the accelerator?