Can you really get rich by investing?
If you want to become a millionaire, investing money can help make that happen. If you open a brokerage account and begin buying assets that provide a generous return, the money your investments earn can be reinvested and earn even more for you. This is called compound growth, and it's a powerful wealth-building tool.
If you can keep your money in the market for 10, 20 or even 30 years, your potential to build wealth is tremendous. Think about it this way: If you put $10,000 in the market and earn 10% per year, taking out your profits each year, you'll have a net profit of $30,000 after 30 years, or three times your money.
By investing in index funds or exchange traded funds (ETFs), you can achieve millionaire status at a lower price and with less risk. Here's what to look for in an index fund or ETF: Broadly diversified. Look for funds with stocks across a wide variety of industries.
Yes, you can earn money from stocks and be awarded a lifetime of prosperity, but potential investors walk a gauntlet of economic, structural, and psychological obstacles.
Investing can help you turn your money into more money, even when you start small. A $1,000 investment—whether you pay down debt, invest in a robo-advisor, or get your 401(k) match—can help lay the foundation for a prosperous financial journey.
Investing just $100 a month can actually do a whole lot to help you grow rich over time. In fact, the table below shows how much your $100 monthly investment could turn into over time, assuming you earn a 10% average annual return.
Let's say you want to become a millionaire in five years. If you're starting from scratch, online millionaire calculators (which return a variety of results given the same inputs) estimate that you'll need to save anywhere from $13,000 to $15,500 a month and invest it wisely enough to earn an average of 10% a year.
Reinvest Your Payments
The truth is that most investors won't have the money to generate $1,000 per month in dividends; not at first, anyway. Even if you find a market-beating series of investments that average 3% annual yield, you would still need $400,000 in up-front capital to hit your targets. And that's okay.
Some experts recommend withdrawing 4% each year from your retirement accounts. To generate $500 a month, you might need to build your investments to $150,000. Taking out 4% each year would amount to $6,000, which comes to $500 a month.
Suppose you're starting from scratch and have no savings. You'd need to invest around $13,000 per month to save a million dollars in five years, assuming a 7% annual rate of return and 3% inflation rate. For a rate of return of 5%, you'd need to save around $14,700 per month.
Is investing actually hard?
The challenges of investing can be many and varied, but there are some common threads that run through them. First, there is the challenge of finding the right investment. With so many options available, it can be difficult to know where to put your money. Second, there is the challenge of managing risk.
Imagine you wish to amass $3000 monthly from your investments, amounting to $36,000 annually. If you park your funds in a savings account offering a 2% annual interest rate, you'd need to inject roughly $1.8 million into the account.
The simple rule: If you need the money in the next three years, then save it ideally in a high-yield savings account or CD. If your goal is further out, or you don't have a specific need for the money, then start thinking about investing in something that will grow more, like stocks or bonds.
Have a look at the above chart and you'll see that if you put a grand into MSFT stock two decades ago, today it would be worth more than $24,000. The same amount invested in the S&P 500 20 years ago would theoretically be worth almost $6,500 today.
| Discount Rate | Present Value | Future Value |
|---|---|---|
| 6% | $1,000 | $3,207.14 |
| 7% | $1,000 | $3,869.68 |
| 8% | $1,000 | $4,660.96 |
| 9% | $1,000 | $5,604.41 |
Investing $1,000 a month for 20 years would leave you with around $687,306. The specific amount you end up with depends on your returns -- the S&P 500 has averaged 10% returns over the last 50 years. The more you invest (and the earlier), the more you can take advantage of compound growth.
Investing only $50 a month adds up
Contributing $50 a month to an investment account can help create impressive savings, even at a moderate 5% annual growth. It's a common myth that you need a few thousand dollars to begin investing.
Your Retirement Savings If You Save $100 a Month in a 401(k)
If you're age 25 and have 40 years to save until retirement, depositing $100 a month into a savings account earning the current average U.S. interest rate of 0.42% APY would get you to just $52,367 in retirement savings — not great.
You plan to invest $100 per month for five years and expect a 6% return. In this case, you would contribute $6,000 over your investment timeline. At the end of the term, your portfolio would be worth $6,949. With that, your portfolio would earn around $950 in returns during your five years of contributions.
“Becoming a millionaire by 40 is not impossible,” said Baruch Silvermann, CEO of The Smart Investor. “But it will require a lot of hard work, dedication and a lot of luck.” That's especially true if you don't get going until you're in your 30s.
What is considered a rich salary?
Based on that figure, an annual income of $500,000 or more would make you rich. The Economic Policy Institute uses a different baseline to determine who constitutes the top 1% and the top 5%. For 2021, you're in the top 1% if you earn $819,324 or more each year. The top 5% of income earners make $335,891 per year.
While becoming a millionaire after 40 requires effort and sacrifice, it's possible in less than a decade through smart budgeting, higher earnings, disciplined saving and calculated risk taking.
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If you were to invest $200 per month over the course of the next 30 years, that would equate to a total investment of $72,000. That's significant, but it's through the effects of compounding that would get your portfolio to a more than $1 million valuation.
According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in February 2014 would be worth $5,971.20, or a gain of 497.12%, as of February 5, 2024, and this return excludes dividends but includes price increases. Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 178.17% and gold's return of 55.50% over the same time frame.
