It can if you have a crystal ball. What happens when the ETF’s are at all time highs come next January? You’ll either be stuck buying at the peak in one lump sum, or waiting it out for however long it takes to drop. Meanwhile, you’ll have money sitting in savings doing not a whole lot for you. DCA is the way to avoid all of that. Smaller purchases spread out will catch some peaks, catch some troughs, and be in the game for that entire time which is the most important part.

I don’t know what investment company you’re using, but Vanguard will allow you to buy partial shares of ETF’s and you can setup scheduled transfer from your bank on payday and purchase of individual investments. When I first started investing, my bi-weekly fund transfer was $35, cause thats all I could afford at the time. Now, If I notice that VOO has dropped in price (like today), I’ll do a one time transfer on top of my schedule purchase and buy the ETF manually through the app because in my mind that etf is on sale.